Opinion ID: 3045669
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: reaves’ federal habeas proceedings

Text: After his state post-conviction proceedings, Reaves filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 federal habeas petition claiming, among other things, that trial counsel had rendered ineffective assistance at the guilt phase of his retrial by failing to investigate, prepare, and present a voluntary intoxication defense. He contended that if counsel had introduced expert or lay testimony in support of a voluntary intoxication defense, it would have shown that he was incapable of forming the intent required for first-degree murder and resulted in a conviction for seconddegree murder instead. Reaves also contended that counsel had rendered ineffective assistance during the penalty phase of the retrial by failing to investigate and present evidence of his impoverished childhood, military experience and combat-related PTSD, and substance abuse. The district court granted relief on Reaves’ guilt phase claim of ineffective assistance of counsel involving a voluntary intoxication defense and ordered a new trial. The Florida Supreme Court’s rejection of that claim, according to the district court, was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. See generally 28 24 Case: 12-11044 Date Filed: 05/30/2013 Page: 25 of 42 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). Chief among those unreasonable findings, the district court believed, was the finding that there was no direct evidence that Reaves was intoxicated at the time he shot the deputy. The district court acknowledged that Reaves’ own statements to the officers that he had ingested cocaine on the day of the killing may have been the only evidence that he had been intoxicated. But the court pointed out that, according to the state trial court, the State had not disputed those statements. The district court also rejected the Florida Supreme Court’s finding that trial counsel had made a strategic decision not to pursue a voluntary intoxication defense. It did so based on counsel’s failure to offer a specific strategic reason for not pursuing that defense and his failure to recall whether he had discussed it with Reaves. Reaves had, the district court concluded, established the deficiency prong of his guilt stage ineffective assistance of counsel claim. The district court also concluded that Reaves had satisfied the prejudice prong of Strickland because there was a reasonable probability that a voluntary intoxication defense would have prevented a first-degree murder conviction. In reaching that conclusion, the district court emphasized both the “tragic and bizarre” circumstances of the case and the expert testimony that the combination of Reaves’ cocaine use and underlying mental problems rendered him unable to form the premeditated design required for first-degree murder. Based on its own review and interpretation of Florida law, which contradicted the view of the Florida 25 Case: 12-11044 Date Filed: 05/30/2013 Page: 26 of 42 Supreme Court, the district court concluded that evidence about the combined effect of Reaves’ mental defects and cocaine use would have been admissible to support a voluntary intoxication defense. The district court also pointed to the length of the jury deliberations and the jury’s questions about a hung jury and the element of premeditation, which the court surmised reflected “indecision and concerns about whether the requisite intent for first degree murder had been established.” In addition to granting relief on the guilt phase claim, the district court ordered an evidentiary hearing on Reaves’ penalty phase claim in order to determine the extent of additional mitigating evidence that could have been presented to the jury and to assess whether the Florida Supreme Court reasonably found that such evidence would have been irrelevant or cumulative. The court, however, stayed the evidentiary hearing pending the result of any appeal of its decision of Reaves’ guilt phase claim. The State filed timely motions for reconsideration under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) and Fed. R. Civ. P. 60, both of which the district court denied. The State then filed this appeal.