Opinion ID: 77758
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Additional Evidence of Intoxication

Text: 58 Jennings argues that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to introduce the testimony of several people who witnessed his intoxicated condition on the night and morning of the murder. Jennings's counsel did call Russell Schneider and Catherine Music to testify during the penalty phase of the trial, but he did not call Annis Music, Patrick Clawson, or Floyd Canada, each of whom had some interaction with Jennings that night. 59 At the 1997 postconviction hearing, Annis Music testified that she spoke to Jennings by telephone at 2:30 a.m. on the night of the murder. Jennings told her that he was getting very drunk and asked her to pick him up from the bar when she got off work at 4:00 a.m. She described his speech as [s]lurred. Jennings was not at the bar at 4:00 a.m. when Annis stopped by there, but she saw Jennings between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. when he returned home after the murder. According to Annis, Jennings was very wide-eyed and, obviously, very intoxicated. He couldn't walk down the hall without banging into the walls. When asked if it appeared that he was doing any drugs in addition to alcohol, Annis answered, I couldn't say for sure because I wasn't there, but, just by the way he looked, it could have been more than alcohol. Although Catherine Music described a similar scene at trial, she did not recall her daughter Annis being there at the time. Jennings's trial counsel, Vincent Howard, also testified at the hearing. He said that he had a note in his file, presumably from Jennings, reminding him to call Annis regarding Jennings's appearance, but never did so. He opined that Annis Music's testimony describing Jennings's behavior would be probative of his mental status and his ab[ility] to conform his conduct ... to the law, and possibly on the issue of intent. 60 Patrick Clawson also testified at the 1997 hearing. He described Jennings as pretty inebriated at the time that he left the bar at 2:30 a.m. He noted that Jennings had his arm around another person and was not so sure [Jennings] could hold himself up, he was pretty drunk. Clawson also believed that, because of Jennings's condition, it was kind of a stretch that he could have forced open the window and screen, crawled into the victim's bedroom window, and pulled her out of bed as had been described at trial. On cross examination, the prosecutor reminded Clawson of a statement he had given police in June of 1979, less than a month after the murder, in which Clawson described Jennings as far more capable: he wasn't falling down, but he might have had a slight stagger. Clawson did not disagree with his earlier assessment. Howard attempted to locate Clawson at the time of the third trial but was told that Clawson was stationed overseas in the military. Clawson was not stationed overseas. Jennings alleges that had Howard followed up with Annis Music, he would have discovered that she and Clawson were married and living in Panama City. 61 Although he did not testify at the postconviction hearing, Floyd Canada had earlier given a statement in which he described Jennings as stagger[ing] pretty bad. Canada was a member of the group drinking with Jennings and Russell Schneider at the first bar, and he also accompanied Jennings to a second bar where they drank until 4:30 a.m. Canada was the last person to see Jennings before he approached Rebecca Kunash's window. At the 1997 hearing, Howard expressed severe misgivings about calling Canada to testify. In an even earlier statement to police, Canada denied that Jennings appeared to be drunk and described his condition as [j]ust normal, had a buzz on, he was high but he knew what he was doing. Howard recognized that if he tried to introduce Canada's later statement, he would be cross examine[d] very, very hard on the inconsistency. 62 Finally, Jennings claims that his trial counsel should have elicited testimony from Catherine Music that Jennings looked kind of wild looking that night, a statement she made to the assistant state attorney but apparently never volunteered to Jennings's attorney. Jennings became aware of this statement after receiving the State's files on remand from the first postconviction appeal. Howard testified that such a description would have been useful to present to the State's mental health experts as objective evidence of Jennings's intoxication. 63 The Florida Supreme Court rejected Jennings's ineffectiveness claims, concluding that his counsel's failure to introduce additional evidence did not fall short of the objective standard of reasonableness required by Strickland. Remarking on the evidence that was introduced at the penalty phase, the court noted that the testimony of Catherine Music and Schneider came from 64 eye witnesses who observed his drinking experience and his physical condition just about three hours before and shortly after the murder. This coupled with the hypothetical question asked of the medical experts to the effect that Jennings consumed from two to five gallons of beer in about four to six hours constituted a good effort to convince the jury to find intoxication as a mitigating factor. 65 Jennings IV, 583 So.2d at 321. As for the additional evidence of intoxication, the court concluded that [i]t is not negligent to fail to call everyone who may have information about an event. Id. In the second state postconviction appeal, the Florida Supreme Court stuck by its earlier conclusion that, notwithstanding the testimony of Annis Music that Jennings appeared very intoxicated and banged into walls, Jennings's ability to function in carrying out the crime demonstrated that he was not substantially impaired. Jennings V, 782 So.2d at 860. Therefore, counsel's failure to introduce the testimony of Annis Music did not prejudice Jennings because it did nothing to rebut Muszynski's description of Jennings's self-confessed actions. The court also rejected a successive claim based on Clawson's statement because it was redundant of statements of Slocum, Annis Music, Catherine Music and Floyd Canada, and does not support a Strickland violation. Id. at 860 n. 8. 66 Jennings argues that the state court unreasonably applied Strickland for three reasons. First, he argues that the only court to review the substantive merits of his claim, the Jennings IV court, did so without the aid of Howard's testimony at the 1997 postconviction hearing, which took place after the decision. Thus, the court's conclusion that Howard would not have used the additional intoxication evidence amounts to unsupported factfinding. Second, Jennings points out that Annis Music's testimony would have shown that Jennings had no preexisting plan to rape and murder Rebecca Kunash because he was trying to get a ride home from the bar. Third, and most significantly, the additional testimony would have, in Jennings's view, provided objective evidence of his intoxication, buttressing the testimony of the defense's expert witnesses and having the potential to persuade the State's experts that Jennings was substantially impaired. 67 The additional intoxication testimony would not have significantly strengthened Jennings's case for mitigation, and thus no prejudice resulted under Strickland by leaving it out. During the penalty phase, trial counsel introduced the testimony of two eyewitnesses, Schneider and Catherine Music, who established how much Jennings had been drinking and the extent of his intoxication before and after the murder. Counsel also elicited hypothetical, expert testimony that Jennings's drinking, when coupled with his personality disorders, could substantially impair his ability to conform his conduct to the law. As the Florida Supreme Court remarked, this was a good effort to convince the jury to find intoxication as a mitigating factor. Jennings IV, 583 So.2d at 321. Given the evidence actually presented, we cannot agree that the additional evidence Jennings faults his counsel for omitting creates a reasonable probability that he would have received a different sentence. It was certainly not unreasonable to omit the testimony of Floyd Canada. Canada's pretrial statement would have subjected his trial testimony to crippling impeachment, and Howard's decision not to call Canada was clearly a strategic choice entitled to a presumption of reasonableness. 68 Even assuming that Howard was deficient for failing to call Annis Music (as Jennings requested he do), which would have led him to Clawson, we conclude that no prejudice resulted from the omission of their testimony. As the state court explained (in the context of Jennings's guilt-phase ineffectiveness claim), Annis's testimony merely confirm[ed] that given by [Catherine] Music. Id. at 320. Both Catherine and Annis observed Jennings staggering and falling against the walls of Catherine's house. Likewise, Clawson's description of Jennings as pretty inebriated and having difficulty standing without aid was merely cumulative of Catherine's testimony (and less relevant because more remote in time from the murder). See Van Poyck v. Florida Dep't of Corr., 290 F.3d 1318, 1324 n. 7 (11th Cir.2002) (A petitioner cannot establish ineffective assistance by identifying additional evidence that could have been presented when that evidence is merely cumulative.). Catherine Music's earlier description of Jennings as wild looking, while somewhat different from her trial testimony, does not constitute the sort of objective evidence of intoxication that Jennings now maintains would have swayed the opinions of the State's experts. Most importantly, none of the additional evidence directly calls into question Jennings's ability to carry out the rape and murder as Muszynski described, and as corroborated by Kruger and Crisco. Above all, it was the manner of the crime's execution that led the State's experts, and ultimately the trial court, to conclude that Jennings was not substantially impaired. 69 Jennings's other arguments also fail to persuade us. The additional evidence does not establish that Jennings lacked a preexisting plan for purposes of the CCP aggravator merely because he asked Annis to pick him up when she left work. Obviously, his premeditated intent to attack Rebecca Kunash did not hinge on the availability of a ride home. As for the argument that the state court improperly rejected Jennings's claims based on the unsupported factfinding that his trial counsel would not have used the additional testimony, it is irrelevant that Howard later testified he would have introduced such evidence in mitigation. The Strickland standard of objective reasonableness does not depend on the subjective intentions of the attorney, judgments made in hindsight, or an attorney's admission of deficient performance. Chandler, 218 F.3d at 1315 & n. 16. And as we have said, even assuming that Howard was deficient, no prejudice ensued. Therefore, Jennings has failed to show that the Florida Supreme Court's rejection of his ineffective assistance claims based on the additional intoxication evidence was contrary to or an unreasonable application of federal law.