Opinion ID: 1843956
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Remainder of Van Poyck's Claims

Text: The remainder of Van Poyck's claims are as follows: (4) the great risk to many aggravating circumstance was unconstitutionally vague; (6) the judge and jury weighed the invalid aggravating factors that the murder was premeditated or that Van Poyck was the triggerman; (7) the prosecutorial argument as well as the jury instructions improperly shifted the burden of proof during the penalty phase proceedings; (8) the trial court improperly denied Van Poyck's challenges for cause during jury selection; (9) Van Poyck's constitutional rights were violated by the prosecutor's conduct during trial; (10) the acquittal and affidavit of O'Brien together with the testimony of Turner necessitate a new trial; (11) Enmund/Tison [5] errors necessitate a reversal of Van Poyck's death sentence; (12) the consideration, as an aggravating circumstance, of the underlying felony that had already been utilized to convict Van Poyck of felony murder was improper; (13) the trial court and prosecutor erred in indicating to the jury that sympathy was an inappropriate consideration; (14) the trial court failed to conduct an independent evaluation of the mitigation offered by Van Poyck; (15) the jury instructions given at the penalty phase were vague and confusing; and (16) the trial court committed fundamental error by failing to instruct the jury on justifiable or excusable homicide as part of the instruction on manslaughter. All of these claims are procedurally barred. Most were raised and rejected on direct appeal. [6] One of these claims was not objected to at trial and fails to rise to the level of fundamental error. [7] Finally, two of the claims are waived because they should have been raised on direct appeal. [8] For the reasons expressed, we affirm the lower court's denial of all relief. It is so ordered. OVERTON, GRIMES, HARDING and WELLS, JJ., concur. ANSTEAD, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with an opinion, in which KOGAN, C.J. and SHAW, J., concur. ANSTEAD, Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part. I dissent from that part of the opinion finding no error in the trial court's failure to consider the evidence of Dr. Villalobos, and in the majority's approval of the trial court's finding that trial counsel performed competently in investigating and preparing appellant's case for the penalty phase proceedings. This Court was faced with almost the identical circumstances in Deaton v. Dugger, 635 So.2d 4, 9 (Fla.1993), wherein we held that counsel who waited until after the guilt phase to prepare for the penalty phase and then scrambled to investigate and prepare mitigation deprived [the defendant] of a reliable penalty phase proceeding. The same holding is mandated here. The trial court ignored the issue of the failure to investigate and, instead, focused entirely on the apparently misrepresented statements of Dr. Villalobos, and the trial court's speculation that appellant's bad record would have resulted in a death recommendation regardless of any mitigation. Similarly, the majority here has ignored the undisputed evidence of lack of investigation and preparation, as well as this Court's own prior opinion which demonstrates counsel's utter failure to present any viable mitigating evidence to the trial judge and jury. See Van Poyck v. State, 564 So.2d 1066 (Fla. 1990). The majority fails to acknowledge, for example, that even the meager mitigation evidence presented by counsel was not put together until after the penalty phase began, and even then counsel conceded he had to scramble to put anything on. [9] Further, the attempt at mitigation by this scramble actually backfired when the trial court not only rejected it, but used it to bolster the case against the defendant. See 564 So.2d at 1069. The majority has simply rehashed a lot of general information known to trial counsel in an attempt to put the best face on a very bad situation. Tellingly, the majority has devoted some ten pages to a vain attempt to support a flawed analysis of less than two pages issued by the trial court. [10] See Majority op. at 688-695. The undisputed facts in this case present a blatant example of counsel's failure to investigate and prepare a penalty phase defense. Once again, we have a lawyer appointed who had absolutely no experience in capital cases. Now, there are many resourceful and talented lawyers who, although lacking specific experience, would be able to learn the system and do an outstanding job of investigating and preparing a defense. However, in this case we have an inexperienced lawyer who has conceded that he was unprepared and, in his words caught with [his] pants down, because he had erroneously assumed that the trial court would grant a lengthy continuance between the guilt phase and the penalty phase of the proceedings. We do not have to guess at whether counsel did a proper investigation and prepared a defense before the penalty phase began: counsel admits he did not. Trial counsel acknowledged under oath that with the denial of a continuance he simply ran out of time to properly investigate mitigation. In addition, we have the sworn and unrebutted testimony of co-counsel who says the situation was so bad that he threatened to go to the trial judge and disclose the blatant lack of investigation and preparation. He concedes that he made a serious mistake in not doing so. In the post-conviction hearing below the appellant presented a vast array of mitigating circumstances of the most serious nature that should have been thoroughly investigated and presented at the original penalty phase. Two brief excerpts from appellant's brief provide a flavor of the information that would have been discovered had a proper investigation of appellant's life been done: Billy was sent to youth hall for the first time at age 12. Shortly after he arrived there, he was raped. Two years later, he was sent to the Florida School for Boys at Okeechobee. At Okeechobee, Billy was hog tied, drenched in water and left over night in the wet room, and frequently sent to the ice cream room, where he was given thirty licks with straps and paddles, the process being repeated if he cried out during the beating. T. 486, 498; App. 32. He also saw other children be sexually abused, and was placed under the supervision of older and larger offenders. T. 205-09. The substandard conditions at Okeechobee are well documented, see generally App. 37, and were described in detail by juvenile justice expert Paul DeMuro. DeMuro described the dangerous, overcrowded conditions in the dormitories, where status offenders were not separated from violent offenders, nor smaller children from larger, leading to frequent physical and sexual assaults on the younger and smaller children; the absence of any attempt to treat or rehabilitate youthful offenders; and the fact that small, middle class white boys without a history of institutionalization (like Billy Van Poyck when he was first sent to Okeechobee) were at the greatest risk. T. 319-32. .... Approximately two years after Billy was sent to adult prison, he suffered a breakdown. For most of the next several years he received psychiatric treatment and medication, including industrial strength dosages of antipsychotic medications, and two admissions to the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee. T. 595-605; see generally Def. Exs. 23, 24. Dr. Rothenberg believes that this breakdown was the predictable result of the failure to provide the type of long term inpatient treatment he had recommended for Billy: This subsequent history confirms my initial diagnosis. It is predictable and almost inevitable that a young and vulnerable person, already suffering from psychosis, would deteriorate further when placed in an adult prison, without any therapeutic intervention. In the absence of the type of therapeutic intervention that I recommended, there is no reason to believe that Mr. Van Poyck's mental illness has ever dissipated. While the observability of such a mental illness fluctuates over time and may be masked by medication, the mental illness itself persists. App. 46. All of this mitigating evidence was readily available to trial counsel, but none of it was discovered or presented. The reasons for these failures are not far to seek. Mr. Van Poyck's lead attorney was Cary Klein. Klein was a general litigation attorney who had never before handled a capital case. T. 1041-42. From the beginning of this difficult, complex case Klein believed a felony murder conviction likely, and that the case would almost certainly go to a penalty phase proceeding. T. 1145. Also, at the very outset of the case Klein discussed potential mitigation with Mr. Van Poyck. T. 1060-61. However, Klein did not investigate for mitigation at any time prior to the trial. Instead, he had decided to wait until the guilt phase of the trial was over to begin penalty investigation because he believed that the trial court would give a one to three week continuance between phases. T. 1158. He explained at the hearing that he was counting on this time to investigate penalty phase issues and felt safe in doing so because the court had assured him that there would be a few weeks between phases. Id. As it turned out, no continuance was forthcoming, and the record contains no written or oral order or promise of a continuance. See T. 1196. Appellant's Initial Brief at 15, 17-18. In our previous review of this case we found insufficient evidence of premeditation but affirmed appellant's guilt on a felonymurder theory. In our opinion we upheld the sentence of death and expressly noted that the trial court properly rejected the meager mitigation offered by counsel. Van Poyck v. State, 564 So.2d 1066 (Fla.1990). Knowing what we do now, we should not give our approval to a sentence of death predicated upon a patent case of ineffective assistance of counsel. In doing so we are simply providing additional support to the already considerable body of evidence that the death penalty process is seriously flawed by the legal system's tolerance of incompetent counsel. Cf. Stephen B. Bright, Counsel for the Poor: The Death Sentence Not for the Worst Crime but for the Worst Lawyer, 103 Yale L.J. 1835 (1994). Van Poyck is not going anywhere; he has been convicted and imprisoned for first degree murder. His conviction and imprisonment are not in question. We should apply our holding in Deaton v. Dugger and remand this case for a reliable penalty phase proceeding in which evidence of aggravation and mitigation can be presented by counsel prepared on both sides. KOGAN, C.J. and SHAW, J., concur.