Opinion ID: 2544290
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: June 2005 Evidentiary Hearing

Text: The postconviction court held its first evidentiary hearing on Kilgore's rule 3.850 motion from June 13, 2005, through June 15, 2005. During that hearing, postconviction counsel called upon a number of Kilgore's siblings to testify who did not testify at the 1994 trial. Most of the evidence revisited Kilgore's childhood and essentially enhanced much of the testimony from the penalty phase of Kilgore's jury trial. Evidence during the postconviction proceedings also introduced details with regard to Kilgore's time spent at the Oakley Training School (Oakley), a juvenile detention facility in rural Mississippi. The evidence detailed the extreme conditions Kilgore experienced at Oakley, specifically that he was institutionalized and frequently beaten. The 2005 evidentiary hearing also revisited the murder of Emerson Robert Jackson. The evidence established that Emerson Robert Jackson had a reputation for taking advantage of inmates and toying with them emotionally. Jackson was notorious for being sexually involved with inmates and then ending his relationships with them, which caused many different inmates to resent him and threaten him with physical violence. Jackson was not liked by many inmates and was often the subject of death threats. The testimony of the inmates presented against Kilgore during the 1994 proceedings was also called into question through evidence presented during the evidentiary hearing. There was testimony that alcohol, drugs, and weapons were readily available to inmates in prison. For this reason, many of the witnesses who testified at Kilgore's 1990 and 1994 trials openly admitted that they were drunk or high at the time of the murder. Each of the witnesses also had received dozens of disciplinary reports filed against them during their time in prison. Two of the inmates were offered deals from the State for their testimony; however, this information was not revealed during the 1990 or 1994 trials. Finally, effectiveness of trial counsel during the 1994 trial was explored during the evidentiary hearing. The evidence established that Alcott did not review the entire record from the 1970 and 1978 trials, but Alcott asserted that it was not a customary practice for counsel to do so in capital cases at the time. Although he did not conduct any depositions for the 1994 trial, Alcott testified that he read all of the depositions conducted by his predecessor, Jeffrey Holmes, and did not think it was necessary to re-depose the witnesses. He also filed only two pretrial motions because he approached the case from the viewpoint that prior counsel, Holmes, was a capable defense attorney and that Holmes would have made motions during the first trial if they were necessary. At one point during the 1994 jury trial, Kilgore knocked over the defense table and Alcott made comments on the record about the possible need for a competency hearing, but ultimately never filed a motion to have such a hearing. With regard to voir dire, Alcott admitted that he did not ask for individual voir dire on the issues of race or homosexuality, but made a judgment call at the time that individual voir dire was unnecessary. Further, he did not believe that the trial judge had any racial bias whatsoever. Alcott also defended his decision to not ask the court to appoint co-counsel for the 1994 trial. He testified that during that time it was not a customary practice to have two trial attorneys on a capital case. In fact, Alcott asserted that it was a strategic decision not to request co-counsel, as he did not want the jury to be exposed to a new face during the penalty phase. When given the American Bar Association's guidelines, which recommend that state capital cases should have at least two competent attorneys, he claimed that at the time of the trial in this case, those guidelines were aspirational goals. Alcott asserted that all of his preparatory decisions with regard to witnesses and evidence related to the prison were strategic in nature. His defense strategy was to disprove the premeditation element of the charge, not the fact that Kilgore actually committed the murder. Accordingly, it was not necessary for him to solicit testimony that challenged the murder itself, but only the premeditation component. Further, Alcott testified that he made the conscious decision to not obtain an investigator because the murder happened in an institutional setting. Alcott admitted that he did not obtain any Florida Department of Corrections files on the inmate witnesses. Although he never received or reviewed the files, Alcott solicited the prior criminal history of many of the inmate witnesses through examination during trial. The only research that Alcott conducted with regard to Kilgore's childhood and upbringing consisted of interviewing two of Kilgore's siblings, reviewing the limited files received from prior counsel, and interviewing Kilgore. At the 2005 evidentiary hearing, Alcott openly admitted that he did not spend much time interviewing the siblings. The two siblings he did interview testified that Alcott's contact was minimal at best. Alcott also admitted that he never interviewed Barbara Ann Jackson, the individual who was allegedly sexually involved with Kilgore and kidnapped by him in 1978. Alcott testified that he did not hire an independent investigator to research Kilgore's background in Mississippi because he did not think it was necessary to prove his case. Further, although most of Kilgore's siblings and family lived in the Lakeland, Florida area, Alcott did not make any effort to contact any of the siblings other than the two that were interviewed for trial. Even though these alleged deficiencies occurred, the trial court concluded both statutory mental health mitigators and multiple nonstatutory mitigators directly related to Kilgore's impoverished childhood had been established. See Kilgore, 688 So.2d at 897. Alcott hired only one mental health expert for the 1994 trial to supplement the expert testimony solicited for the 1990 trial. Alcott did, however, have access to the records and experts from the 1990 trial. Alcott testified that he hired Dr. Henry Dee because he had used him in prior felony cases and believed that Dr. Dee was an excellent witness. Dr. Dee testified that he never discussed Kilgore's potential mental retardation with Alcott. He did, however, testify during the 1994 trial with regard to Kilgore's organic brain damage. Finally, the mental health experts who testified during the 2005 evidentiary hearing, including Dr. Dee, all stated that the new information obtained after the trial with regard to Kilgore's childhood and mental development would have been relevant during the 1994 trial. The new information included the fact that most of Kilgore's mental disabilities can be attributed in some way to chemical, substance, or alcohol abuse. Further, the evidence presented by defense experts during the postconviction hearing revealed that Kilgore's mental deficits can be attributed to a severe case of borderline personality disorder, which can result in outbursts of anger, rage, and explosiveness. Kilgore's diabetes, which likely causes severe vascular problems, led him to a peripheral neuropathy condition. The evidentiary hearing also revealed the medical opinion of multiple experts that Kilgore suffers from institutionalization.