Opinion ID: 1827685
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Direct Appeal from Denial of Motion to Vacate

Text: Riley challenges the denial of his motion for postconviction relief without an evidentiary hearing. We find that all of the grounds for relief raised by Riley were properly denied without an evidentiary hearing. As we have repeatedly held, when the motion and record conclusively demonstrate that the movant is not entitled to relief, the motion may be denied without an evidentiary hearing. Muhammad v. State, 426 So.2d 533 (Fla. 1982). Riley alleged that his death sentence was obtained in violation of his rights guaranteed by the sixth, eighth, and fourteenth amendments to the federal constitution because the jury was not instructed that a six-six split on their decision to recommend life or death results in a life recommendation, because the jury should not have been instructed to consider all statutory aggravating factors, and because Florida law at the time of trial required that all capital jurors be instructed on lesser offenses to murder in the first degree where those offenses are wholly unsupported by the evidence. There is no merit to these contentions. We have already determined that the jury in this case was properly instructed at the sentencing hearing. Riley v. State, 413 So.2d at 1174. Additionally, we have recently rejected similar arguments in Hitchcock v. State, 432 So.2d 42 (Fla. 1983), wherein we said: The claim that the current standard jury instructions (which require instructing only on those lesser degrees of homicide supported by the evidence and which is similar to the instruction upheld in Hopper v. Evans [___ U.S. ___] 102 S.Ct. 2049 [72 L.Ed.2d 367] (1982)) makes the former jury instruction arbitrary because of unchannelled jury discretion does not meet the test set out in Witt v. State, 387 So.2d 922 (Fla.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1067 [101 S.Ct. 796, 66 L.Ed.2d 612] (1980), for providing relief because of a change in the law. Instructing on all of the statutory aggravating circumstances has been upheld previously in Straight v. Wainwright, 422 So.2d 827 (Fla. 1982). Finally, the claim that Rose v. State, 425 So.2d 521 (Fla. 1982), has invalidated the standard jury instruction regarding the vote needed to make a recommendation as to death or life imprisonment misconstrues Rose, in which we found giving an Allen [ v. United States, 164 U.S. 492, 17 S.Ct. 154, 41 L.Ed. 528 (1896)] charge to the jury during deliberation over sentence to have been unwarranted. Id. at 44 n. 3. Riley also alleged that his counsel was ineffective because he failed to object to the trial court's instruction regarding the weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors, failed to adequately confer with Riley during the penalty phase, failed to investigate certain mitigating evidence, failed to investigate facts which would have undermined the credibility of the eyewitness, failed to utilize adequate funds for investigative purposes, failed to object to allegedly inflammatory comments to the jury made by the prosecutor, and failed to object at resentencing to the trial court's failure to impanel a new jury. Applying the test announced in Knight v. State, 394 So.2d 997 (Fla. 1981), we find nothing in the record to indicate that Riley's counsel was ineffective. Riley failed to show that the detailed acts or omissions constituted a substantial and serious deficiency measurably below the standard of competent counsel. Riley further alleged that, based on a twenty-one-county study on the imposition of the death penalty in Florida, Florida's death penalty has been imposed in an arbitrary, capricious, and irrational manner. We rejected identical claims in Hitchcock v. State and Thomas v. State, 421 So.2d 160 (Fla. 1982). The trial court did not err in denying Riley's motion to vacate without an evidentiary hearing.