Opinion ID: 1685081
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: change of venue and method of voir dire

Text: Next, Muhammad argues that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise a claim on direct appeal regarding change of venue and individualized voir dire of members of the jury pool. In selecting the jury, the trial court utilized a hybrid method of jury selection whereby the court would ask if any member of the jury had heard anything about the case, to which the members would respond simply affirmatively or negatively. Those who responded affirmatively were then sent out and individualized voir dire was conducted with those members. With regard to when a change of venue is necessary to protect a defendant's rights, the Court has provided the following test: The test for determining a change of venue is whether the general state of mind of the inhabitants of a community is so infected by knowledge of the incident and accompanying prejudice, bias, and preconceived opinions that jurors could not possibly put these matters out of their minds and try the case solely on the evidence presented in the courtroom. Rolling v. State, 695 So.2d 278, 284 (Fla. 1997) (quoting McCaskill v. State, 344 So.2d 1276, 1278 (Fla.1977)). When a motion for change of venue is filed a trial court should evaluate (1) the extent and nature of any pretrial publicity; and (2) the difficulty encountered in actually selecting a jury. Id. at 285. Furthermore, the existence of pretrial publicity in a case does not necessarily lead to an inference of partiality or require a change of venue; rather, pretrial publicity must be examined with attention to a number of circumstances, including (1) when the publicity occurred in relation to the time of the crime and the trial; (2) whether the publicity was made up of factual or inflammatory stories; (3) whether the publicity favored the prosecution's side of the story; (4) the size of the community exposed to the publicity; and (5) whether the defendant exhausted all of his peremptory challenges in seating the jury. See Foster v. State, 778 So.2d 906, 913 (Fla.2001); Rolling, 695 So.2d at 285. Furthermore, decisions on a motion for a change of venue are firmly within the trial court's discretion and will not be overturned on appeal absent a palpable abuse of discretion. Kearse v. State, 770 So.2d 1119, 1124 (Fla.2000). In the postconviction context where the defendant is claiming that trial counsel was somehow ineffective with regard to venue, a court can examine counsel's performance for deficiency and, when assessing the prejudice prong of Strickland: [T]he defendant must, at a minimum bring forth evidence demonstrating that there is a reasonable probability that the trial court would have, or at least should have, granted a motion for change of venue if [defense] counsel had presented such a motion to the court. Meeks v. Moore, 216 F.3d 951, 961 (11th Cir.2000); see also Provenzano v. Dugger, 561 So.2d 541, 545 (Fla.1990) (concluding that counsel was not ineffective for failing to renew the motion for change of venue because it was a tactical decision and because it is most unlikely that a change of venue would have been granted because there were no undue difficulties in selecting an impartial jury). Wike v. State, 813 So.2d 12, 18 (Fla.2002). In the instant case any omission by appellate counsel in failing to present an issue regarding venue on appeal is not of such magnitude as to constitute a serious error or substantial deficiency falling measurably outside the range of professionally acceptable performance. Pope, 496 So.2d at 800. Although there may have been some publicity surrounding the murder of Officer Burke, an independent review of the record demonstrates that there was no difficulty in seating the jury. Under these circumstances, the trial court's decision to deny Muhammad's various motions for change of venue and select the jury in Bradford County does not amount to a palpable abuse of discretion. See Kearse, 770 So.2d at 1124. Therefore, any deficiency in failing to raise this issue on appeal does not appear to be so serious or substantial that appellate counsel's failure to raise the issue fell outside the range of professionally acceptable performance. With regard to the issue of individual voir dire, Muhammad's argument is without merit. The reason that Muhammad requested individual voir dire was to prevent members of the venire from tainting others with any knowledge of the case. The selection process that the trial court utilized, which allowed the judge to test for previous knowledge of the case without tainting the jury pool, addressed Muhammad's concerns. Under these circumstances, appellate counsel was not ineffective for failing to raise this claim.