Opinion ID: 1042993
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Exclusion of Dr. Cunningham’s Testimony

Text: Troya argues that the district court erred in excluding expert testimony from Dr. Cunningham, a forensic psychologist, during the penalty phase of the trial. In a pretrial notice, the government listed Troya’s future dangerousness as an aggravating factor that the government intended to prove as justifying a sentence of death. After reviewing Dr. Cunningham’s report as to Troya’s lack of future dangerousness, however, the government withdrew that aggravating factor before the penalty phase. Troya contends that Dr. Cunningham’s testimony was admissible to rebut future dangerousness put at issue by the government, and also as mitigating evidence. The government argues that because future dangerousness was withdrawn as an aggravating factor, there was nothing for Troya to rebut. The 5 The two witnesses in this case testified that they had been dealing drugs continuously with Sanchez and his-codefendants during the course of the conspiracy as well as in the months preceding the conspiracy. In Lopez, we addressed a similar circumstance insofar as it pertained to the co-defendants and held that the pre-conspiracy dealings and the charged-conspiracy dealings were all a part of the same ongoing relationship, involving the same conspirators, and evidence of the pre-conspiracy dealings was therefore necessary to help explain their ongoing relationship. 649 F.3d at 1248. Here too, the pre-conspiracy dealings between Sanchez and his co-conspirators helped explain their relationship when the conspiracy began and how they came to be trading together in large amounts of cocaine during the course of the conspiracy. 11 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 12 of 28 government also maintains that Dr. Cunningham’s testimony was not mitigation evidence because its substance and purpose were not specific to Troya. We agree with Troya that the district court abused its discretion in excluding Dr. Cunningham’s testimony on Troya’s lack of future dangerousness. That error, however, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. “[C]riminal prosecutions must comport with prevailing notions of fundamental fairness.” California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 485, 104 S. Ct. 2528, 2532 (1984). This includes “a meaningful opportunity [for criminal defendants] to present a complete defense.” Id. The Federal Death Penalty Act provides that a defendant should be “permitted to rebut any information received at the hearing.” 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c). “[I]n capital cases, the sentencer may not refuse to consider or be precluded from considering any relevant mitigating evidence.” Smith v. Singletary, 61 F.3d 815, 817 (11th Cir. 1995) (per curiam) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Jones v. United States, 527 U.S. 373, 381, 119 S. Ct. 2090, 2098 (1999) (holding that “a scheme must allow a broad inquiry into all constitutionally relevant mitigating evidence” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Hitchcock v. Dugger, 481 U.S. 393, 398–99, 107 S. Ct. 1821, 1824 (1987) (finding a death sentence invalid where “the advisory jury was instructed not to consider, and the sentencing judge refused to consider, evidence of nonstatutory mitigating circumstances”). 12 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 13 of 28 Evidence regarding a capital defendant’s lack of future dangerousness has long been viewed by the Supreme Court as admissible “[w]here the prosecution specifically relies on a prediction of future dangerousness in asking for the death penalty.” Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1, 5 n.1, 106 S. Ct. 1669, 1671 n.1 (1986). In those circumstances, “the defendant [must] be afforded an opportunity to introduce evidence on this point; it is also the elemental due process requirement that a defendant not be sentenced to death on the basis of information which he had no opportunity to deny or explain.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court extended that principle in Simmons v. South Carolina to instances where “[t]he State [only] raised the specter of petitioner’s future dangerousness generally,” rather than listing it as an aggregator. 512 U.S. 154, 165, 114 S. Ct. 2187, 2194 (1994) (plurality opinion) (holding that the capital defendant was entitled to inform the jury of his parole ineligibility where the state placed future dangerousness at issue). The Court held that a defendant must be afforded an opportunity to “deny or explain” the generalized future dangerousness of the defendant. Id. at 164, 114 S. Ct. at 2194 (internal quotation marks omitted). Then, in Kelly v. South Carolina, the Court further held that a capital defendant is entitled to rebut future dangerousness even when it is merely implied by the evidence presented at trial, rather than explicitly argued. 534 U.S. 246, 252–57, 122 S. Ct. 13 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 14 of 28 726, 731–33 (2002) (holding that a capital defendant has right to rebut future dangerousness that the government has put “at issue” in the case). We review the erroneous exclusion of mitigating evidence—known as a Hitchcock error6—for harmlessness “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S. Ct. 824, 828 (1967); see United States v. Arbolaez, 450 F.3d 1283, 1294 (11th Cir. 2006) (per curiam) (“Errors in contravention of . . . constitutional rights must be found harmless beyond a reasonable doubt or an otherwise valid conviction will be set aside.”); Jones v. Dugger, 867 F.2d 1277, 1279 (11th Cir. 1989). In determining the harmlessness of the error, “we must consider all potential mitigating evidence that would have been presented, but for the Hitchcock error.” Ferguson v. Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 580 F.3d 1183, 1202 (11th Cir. 2009) (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted). Trial errors are subject to harmless error review, whereas structural errors require automatic reversal. Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 307–312, 111 S. Ct. 1246, 1264–1266 (1991). Structural errors are “structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism, which defy analysis by harmless-error standards.” Id. at 309, 111 S. Ct. at 1265 (internal quotation marks omitted). Trial errors, however, can “be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence 6 481 U.S. at 398–99, 107 S. Ct. at 1824. 14 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 15 of 28 presented in order to determine whether its admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 307–08, 111 S. Ct. at 1264. Here, the government indubitably put Troya’s future dangerousness at issue. First, we stress that “capital cases will [inherently] show a defendant likely to be dangerous in the future.” Kelly, 534 U.S. at 264, 122 S. Ct. at 737 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted). Regardless, through the introduction of extensive evidence, the government expended much effort to establish that Troya was a tremendously dangerous individual. The government introduced evidence, as discussed in subsection A, of four separate uncharged firearms offenses, including two drive-by shootings. The government showed that Troya possessed an AK-47 and stated that he was, prior to his incarceration, armed and dangerous at all times, with access to an “arsenal of weapons, a mountain of ammunition, and any weapon of [his] choice.” The government discussed Troya’s violent past through the introduction of evidence of multiple assaults: one, a felony battery where he punched a friend’s mother in the face and another, an alleged assault on his previous girlfriend. After a lengthy two-week trial where the jury learned of Troya’s attempted prison escape and various acts of violence, the government, in closing, stated “[i]s it really pushing credulity to believe that a killer like Daniel Troya could execute an entire family?” Troya, the government argued, was a “brutal career criminal” 15 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 16 of 28 and “evil.” Troya had “committed himself to a life of unrepentant violence,” and was “the personification of violence [and] . . . brutality.” Troya, the government emphasized, is “not [an] innocent law abiding” citizen, but a man who “doesn’t care who he hurts, when he hurts them, or how he hurts them.” The government consistently underscored one point throughout trial: Troya’s “unmitigated violence against anybody and everybody.” The government argues that the numerous references to Troya’s propensity towards violence were to demonstrate Troya’s past conduct and moral culpability; “[b]ut the import of the argument simply cannot be compartmentalized this way.” Id. at 255, 122 S. Ct. at 732. “[E]vidence of future dangerousness under Simmons is evidence with a tendency to prove dangerousness in the future; its relevance to that point does not disappear merely because it might support other inferences or be described in other terms.” Id. at 254, 122 S. Ct. at 732. The impact of this evidence upon the jury in the present case is manifest: if the jury did not sentence Troya to death, he would be just as lawless in the future. It is obvious to us that “[t]he prosecutor accentuated the clear implication of future dangerousness raised by the evidence,” id. at 255, 122 S. Ct. at 732, from which the jury undoubtedly made a “logical inference,” id. at 252, 122 S. Ct. 731 (internal quotation marks omitted). “A jury hearing evidence of a defendant’s propensity for violence reasonably will conclude that he presents a risk of violent behavior, whether locked 16 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 17 of 28 up or free . . . .” Id. at 253–54, 122 S. Ct. at 731. Consequently, Troya had a right to rebut this evidence with Dr. Cunningham’s testimony. See United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244, 1269 (11th Cir. 2004) (“[T]he purpose of rebuttal evidence is to explain, repel, counteract, or disprove the evidence of the adverse party.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Dr. Cunningham’s testimony was also admissible as non-statutory mitigating evidence. See 18 U.S.C. § 3592(a)(8); Skipper, 476 U.S. at 5, 106 S. Ct. at 1671 (holding that “evidence that the defendant would not pose a danger if spared (but incarcerated) must be considered potentially mitigating”); Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 276, 96 S. Ct. 2950, 2958 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.) (“What is essential is that the jury have before it all possible relevant information about the individual defendant whose fate it must determine.”), overruled on other grounds by Abdul–Kabir v. Quarterman, 550 U.S. 233, 258, 127 S. Ct. 1654, 1657 (2007). Moreover, character evidence is always relevant as long as a proper foundation for its admission is laid. Jones, 867 F.2d at 1279 (holding that “a jury in a capital case [can] not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant’s character or record that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death” (emphasis in original)). Because “a defendant’s future dangerousness bears on all sentencing determinations made in our criminal justice system,” we find that the district court 17 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 18 of 28 abused its discretion by excluding Dr. Cunningham’s testimony. Simmons, 512 U.S. at 162, 114 S. Ct. at 2193. Although we fail to understand why the government omitted this argument in its brief, we need not vacate Troya’s sentence because any error resulting from the exclusion of Dr. Cunningham’s testimony was harmless.7 See United States v. Adams, 1 F.3d 1566, 1575 (11th Cir. 1993) (stating that “[t]he Government did not argue harmless error in its brief on appeal, but this Court may consider the harmlessness of a trial court’s error where it has not been briefed by the Government”). This case involves a gangland-style murder of two children. On October 13, 2006, three-year-old Luis Damian Escobedo drowned in his own blood after being shot through the heart on the side of the highway. His brother, fouryear-old Luis Julian Escobedo, was killed by a close-range bullet to the head. Yessica Escobedo writhed on the ground in a last-ditch effort to protect her children. In this gruesome quadruple homicide, Appellants stalked the Escobedo family on a Florida highway for nearly nine hours, personally spoke to them, and then ruthlessly murdered them one-by-one, execution style. Cell phone tower records showed that Appellants drove up the East Coast of Florida on I-95 north the night of October 12, 2006. Jose Luis Escobedo and his 7 We note that this was not an 18 U.S.C. § 3595(c)(2) structural error. See United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 148, 126 S. Ct. 2557, 2563–2564 (2006). 18 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 19 of 28 family did the same. Over the span of that evening, multiple calls were made between Appellants and Jose Luis Escobedo’s cell phones. Around midnight, cell phone towers registered a change in direction, and all three cell phones appeared to travel back down I-95 south. At 2:18 a.m. on October 13, toll booth security cameras showed both Appellants’ van and the Escobedo’s jeep enter the Florida Turnpike immediately after one another. Approximately six minutes later, a couple that lived nearby was awakened by the popping sound of gunshots. At 2:27 a.m., Troya’s cell phone made a call to Sanchez’s cell-phone, registering the first call between the two phones all night. Around that same time, calls were also made from both phones to Varela’s cell phone. At 3:01 a.m. and 3:02 a.m., toll booth footage and toll tickets showed Appellants’ van and the Escobedo’s jeep exit the turnpike. Troya’s palm prints were found on the toll ticket belonging to one vehicle, and Sanchez’s prints were found on the other. While the Escobedo’s jeep made it off of the turnpike, the Escobedos did not. Their bodies were discovered the morning of October 13, when a highway traveler stopped to assist what he thought was a sleeping family on the side of the road. He first believed that there were only three bodies, including what looked like a mother holding a child. He soon discovered the fourth tiny victim behind Yessica Escobedo’s leg. The traveler dialed 911. 19 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 20 of 28 It is when we compare this backdrop and the record in its entirety to Dr. Cunningham’s proposed testimony that we conclude its exclusion was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Ferguson, 580 F.3d at 1202 (holding that even if the unconsidered evidence had been admitted, it “would not [have been] enough to alter the outcome [of the trial] in the face of the aggravating circumstances”); Knight v. Dugger, 863 F.2d 705, 732 (11th Cir. 1988). All that Dr. Cunningham would have been able to say if he were permitted to testify on Troya’s behalf is that: (1) Troya had received his GED, which statistically lowered the rate of risk of violence in prison; (2) Troya’s age of 25 lessened his risk of violence in prison; (3) Troya was likely to make a positive adjustment to prison based on his frequent familial visits; and (4) Troya had been safely managed, notwithstanding his escape attempt, during previous stints of incarceration. We are unable to say that this evidence is “substantial and significant,” Delap v. Dugger, 890 F.2d 285, 305 (11th Cir. 1989), given “the totality of the circumstances” weighed by the jury when it recommended that Troya be sentenced to death for the murder of the two Escobedo boys, id. at 306. At sentencing, the jury recommended life sentences for three of the capital counts: the carjacking conviction (Count 6) and the conviction for use of firearms resulting in the deaths of Yessica Escobedo (Count 9) and Jose Luis Escobedo (Count 10). It was only for Counts 7 and 8, the murders of Luis Damian and Luis 20 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 21 of 28 Julian respectively, that the jury recommended the sentence of death to Troya. For all five capital counts, the jury unanimously recognized four statutory aggravating factors. The jury found that Troya substantially planned and premeditated the murders, committed the four murders for pecuniary gain, intentionally killed multiple victims in a single criminal episode, and that the children were particularly vulnerable given their youth (only aggravating for Counts 6, 7, and 8). The jury also found three non-statutory aggravating factors for each of the capital counts. The jury held that Troya participated in other uncharged acts of serious violence, caused serious harm and loss to the victim’s surviving family members, and murdered the two Escobedo boys with the intent of eliminating potential witnesses. In mitigation, the jury considered evidence related to Troya’s background, including evidence: that Troya had family that loved him and with whom he maintained relationships; that Troya experienced trauma and loss in his teenage years; that Troya never received grief counseling for this trauma; that Troya’s uncle was a negative influence; that Troya’s codefendant Danny Varela was not facing murder charges or the death penalty; that victim Jose Luis Escobedo engaged in criminal conduct that contributed to the circumstances leading to his family’s death; and Troya’s prior record. 21 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 22 of 28 After analyzing all aggravating and mitigating factors weighed by the jury, we are confident that there is not a “reasonable possibility” that the inclusion of Dr. Cunningham’s testimony would have changed the jury’s conviction. Chapman, 386 U.S. at 23, 87 S. Ct. at 827 (internal quotation marks omitted). In fact, it is apparent that the jurors concluded Troya could be safely managed in prison, given the life sentences imposed for three of the capital offenses. We surmise that the jurors placed great weight in mitigation on Jose Luis Escobedo’s contributing criminal conduct. Yet, the jury drew a line in the sand when it came to the cold-blooded murder of the Escobedo children. When contrasting the premeditated slaying of two vulnerable children for the purposes of witness elimination and pecuniary gain with any of the mitigation evidence put on by Troya, the harmlessness of the error is apparent. The thrust of Dr. Cunningham’s testimony was that Troya could be safely managed in prison given a variety of factors supported by statistical data. We cannot say that a reasonable jury would change its vote of death for the murder of the Escobedo children to life imprisonment based on this testimony. See Demps v. Dugger, 874 F.2d 1385, 1391 (11th Cir. 1989) (finding harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt where “the evidence excluded from the jury’s consideration would not have affected its sentencing recommendation”); Clark v. Dugger, 834 22 Case: 09-12716 Date Filed: 10/02/2013 Page: 23 of 28 F.2d 1561, 1569 (11th Cir. 1987) (stating that the error “could not have affected” the defendant’s sentence). Accordingly, we conclude that the evidence against Troya in the present case was “so overwhelming” that the exclusion of Dr. Cunningham’s lack of future dangerousness testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 254, 89 S. Ct. 1726, 1728–29 (1969). Thus, despite the government’s failure to even mention the possibility of harmless error in its brief, we provide Troya no relief on this issue.