Opinion ID: 1651278
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Stewart's Childhood and Family

Text: Stewart contends that the postconviction court erred in denying his claim that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present mitigating evidence about Stewart's childhood and family. The postconviction court denied this claim because Stewart failed to show that counsel performed deficiently for failing to present evidence that was essentially cumulative to the evidence presented during the penalty phase. The postconviction court also denied this claim because it concluded that Stewart failed to prove prejudice. The postconviction court did not err in denying relief. Stewart's case is not one in which trial counsel failed to investigate mitigation. During the 2001 penalty phase, the defense called the expert witnesses discussed in the previous section of this opinion and four lay witnesses. Susan Smith-Moore and Linda Arnold, Stewart's stepsisters, testified about life in the home of Stewart's stepfather, Bruce Scarpo. Lillian Brown, Stewart's paternal aunt, testified about Stewart's biological relatives and her memories of his childhood. Marjorie Sawyer testified about Stewart's lifestyle around the time of the murder. The parties also stipulated that Stewart drank eight or nine beers before the shooting. More specifically, Stewart's stepsisters and aunt testified that Stewart was beaten by Scarpo; forced to watch Scarpo's wife Joanne, who was a mother-figure to Stewart, be beaten; forced to work in a bar as a young child; permitted to drink alcohol as a child; derided by Scarpo for having a lisp and trouble with enuresis; and devastated upon learning of his true parentage and his mother's death. The mental health experts and Stewart's aunt established that Stewart attempted suicide and had a family history of mental illness. During the postconviction evidentiary hearing, Stewart called nine witnesses. As discussed above, Stewart called Dr. Eisenstein and Dr. Wood. In addition, Stewart called Pastor Robert VanHorne, who knew Stewart's family during his childhood; Sandra Hibbard, who married Stewart's biological father; Terri Stewart, Stewart's half-sister; Wanda Vetra, Stewart's maternal aunt; and Susan Smith Moore, Linda Arnold, and Nicole Scarpo, Stewart's stepsisters. Competent, substantial evidence supports the postconviction court's conclusion that the postconviction evidence was cumulative to that presented in the penalty phase. The testimony presented at the evidentiary hearing was lengthier and somewhat more detailed but cumulative in character and substance. The primary added details were that Scarpo knocked Stewart unconscious, rubbed feces in Stewart's face as a punishment, and held a gun to his wife's head in front of the children. There was testimony establishing that Stewart was hyperactive and had trouble in school. There also was testimony that Stewart and his siblings were abusive to one another and that Joanne Scarpo sometimes beat the children. Finally, much of the evidentiary hearing testimony concerned biological relatives with whom Stewart had little or no contact. None of these details changed the previously established impression of Stewart's childhood and mental health. Because the evidence that Stewart argues should have been presented is cumulative, Stewart has demonstrated neither deficiency nor prejudice. For example, in Lynch, this Court determined that counsel was not deficient for choosing to present mitigating evidence concerning the defendant's childhood through a mental health expert and the defendant himself, rather than calling numerous lay witnesses. This Court explained: The testimony with regard to Lynch's personal history and background merely corroborated or slightly expanded upon penalty-phase testimony, and this Court has held that `even if alternate witnesses could provide more detailed testimony, trial counsel is not ineffective for failing to present cumulative evidence.' 2 So.3d at 71 (quoting Darling, 966 So.2d at 377). Likewise, in Darling, this Court rejected a claim that counsel was deficient for failing to present mitigating evidence where the evidentiary-hearing testimony generally was only a more detailed presentation of the mitigation previously presented. 966 So.2d at 377. This Court reasoned: Although Darling further asserts that trial counsel was also ineffective for failing to present the testimony of Darling's father, Carlton, during the penalty phase, as noted by the trial court, the substance of Carlton's testimony was actually presented through other witnesses during the penalty phase. Dr. Hercov and Darling's mother and sister testified during the penalty phase with regard to the abuse Darling suffered at the hands of Carlton. Although as an afterthought Carlton provided a more detailed account with regard to the abuse, this Court has held that even if alternate witnesses could provide more detailed testimony, trial counsel is not ineffective for failing to present cumulative evidence. See Gudinas v. State, 816 So.2d 1095, 1106 (Fla.2002); Sweet v. State, 810 So.2d 854, 863-64 (Fla.2002). Therefore, trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to call Carlton as a witness during the penalty phase to present evidence which was generally presented by others. Id. Similarly, in this case the mental health experts and lay witnesses who testified during the penalty phase conveyed the substance, though perhaps not all of the details, of the proposed mitigating circumstances to the penalty phase jury. Thus, trial counsel was not ineffective. Stewart contends that even if the postconviction evidence was cumulative in character, it was not merely cumulative in effect because it would have corroborated the penalty-phase witnesses' testimony, rendering the witnesses more persuasive. Stewart asserts that the additional testimony would have rebutted the State's argument that Moore and Arnold fabricated their account of childhood abuse and alcohol use. While the State did argue during closing statements that Stewart's stepsisters had an incentive to make Stewart's childhood sound as bad as possible, Stewart overlooks that the sentencing court found all of the mitigating factors proposed by the defense. The sentencing court gave some weight to each of the statutory mental health mitigating factors, some weight to each of the several mitigating factors pertaining to the abuse Stewart suffered as a child, modest weight to each of the factors concerning Stewart's lack of a father figure, little weight to the factors concerning Stewart's relationship with this mother, modest weight to the factors pertaining to Stewart's alcohol use, and little weight to Stewart's low-normal intelligence and education. The sentencing court explained that it considered Stewart's family history of mental illness and his suicide attempts in conjunction with other mitigating factors. Overall, Stewart has not shown that the evidence presented at the evidentiary hearing would have resulted in the finding of less weighty aggravation or more weighty mitigation. Stewart's case is not like Parker v. State, 3 So.3d 974, 984 (Fla. 2009), where the sentencing court found [n]o mitigating circumstances, statutory or otherwise, based on the bare bones penalty-phase presentation. Rather, Stewart's case is more analogous to Ferrell v. State, 918 So.2d 163 (Fla.2005). In that case, we determined that the defendant could not prove that he was prejudiced from counsel's failure to present certain witnesses [i]n light of the cumulative nature of [the] mitigation evidence and the fact that the sentencing judge found these same circumstances in mitigation. Id. at 172; see also Brown v. State, 894 So.2d 137, 148 (Fla.2004) (concluding that despite eight-to-four jury recommendation defendant did not prove prejudice because the evidentiary hearing testimony about the defendant's childhood contributed virtually no new information beyond the testimony presented at trial). Accordingly, the evidence presented at the postconviction hearing does not undermine confidence in Stewart's sentence.