Opinion ID: 1571490
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Suppression and the Plain-View Doctrine

Text: Lynch's third guilt-phase ineffectiveness subclaim is that trial counsel were ineffective for failing to file a motion to suppress the items seized from his home on March 5, 9 and 17, 1999. We deny this claim because Lynch cannot demonstrate that he has suffered any prejudice. Cf. e.g., Maxwell, 490 So.2d at 932 (explaining that the Court need not address Strickland' s deficient-performance prong if the defendant-appellant cannot satisfy the prejudice prong). As a preliminary matter, Lynch's warrant-overbreadth ineffectiveness subclaim fails to the extent that he challenges evidence which the police seized but which the State never presented during his trial. See, e.g., Doorbal v. State, 983 So.2d 464, 500 (Fla.2008) (holding that defendant's claim that counsel was ineffective for failing to seek suppression of certain statements was without merit because the State ultimately did not introduce the statements into evidence). Further, the majority of the allegedly objectionable items did not directly relate to Lynch's guilt (e.g., additional correspondence between Lynch and the victims, photos, credit-card statements and receipts, a computer, media-storage devices (CDs, diskettes, etc.), a grey lockbox, Lynch's firearms collection, Lynch's firearms-periodical collection, Lynch's cameras and photography collection, and Lynch's pornography collection). On at least three separate occasions, Lynch had previously admitted that he killed the victims: (1) a recorded conversation with a 911 dispatcher, (2) a conversation with a police negotiator, and (3) a videotaped interrogation with police investigators. Therefore, it is improbable that any knowledge of the hypothetical ability to suppress these items would have altered Lynch's decision to plead guilty. Second, with regard to trial counsel's supposed failure to seek suppression of the murder-suicide letter, we need not address whether counsel rendered deficient performance because the letter was plainly admissible under established Fourth Amendment precedent, viz., decisions outlining the plain-view doctrine. As this Court has explained: [A] warrantless seizure of evidence found in plain view is admissible if at the time of the search: (1) the seizing officer was legitimately in a place where the object could be plainly viewed; (2) the incriminating nature of the seized object was immediately apparent to the police officer; and (3) the seizing officer had a lawful right of access to the object itself. See Horton [ v. California ], 496 U.S. [128,] at 136-37, 110 S.Ct. 2301 [110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990)]. With regard to the third requirement, the [High] Court explained that the seizing officer may lawfully seize an incriminating object if the officer has probable cause prior to the seizure and it was discovered within the parameters of a validly executed search warrant or one of the exceptions to the [Fourth Amendment's general] warrant [requirement]. See id. at 138, 110 S.Ct. 2301; accord Jones v. State, 648 So.2d 669, 676 (Fla. 1994). Indeed, seizure of property in plain view involves no invasion of privacy and is presumptively reasonable, assuming that there is probable cause to associate the property with criminal activity. Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 741-42, 103 S.Ct. 1535, 75 L.Ed.2d 502 (1983) ( quoting Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 587, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980)). Rimmer v. State, 825 So.2d 304, 313 (Fla. 2002). In this case, Mrs. Lynch provided sworn deposition testimony disclosing that (1) police officers were present in the Lynch home on a consensual basis [11] shortly following the March 5, 1999, murders of Roseanna Morgan and Leah Caday; (2) the police officers were already independently aware of the murder-suicide letter; and (3) Mrs. Lynch was in the process of reading this letter in the officers' presence. Based upon our independent review, it is abundantly clear from the record that these officers requested Mrs. Lynch relinquish the letter because of its evident connection to these murders. Therefore, we conclude that the police officers  who were then present in the Lynch home on a consensual basis  possessed probable cause to seize the murder-suicide letter, which Mrs. Lynch was reading in plain view. Cf., e.g., Brown, 460 U.S. at 742, 103 S.Ct. 1535 ([P]robable cause is a flexible, commonsense standard. It merely requires that the facts available to the officer would `warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief,' that certain items may be contraband or stolen property or useful as evidence of a crime; it does not demand any showing that such belief be correct or more likely true than false. A `practical, nontechnical' probability that incriminating evidence is involved is all that is required. (citation omitted)( citing Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 162, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925))). Lynch has thus suffered no prejudice because the murdersuicide letter was plainly admissible under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 12 of the Florida Constitution. The nonexistent ability to suppress this evidence could not have affected Lynch's decision to plead guilty. Accordingly, we deny relief on this subclaim.