Opinion ID: 2757661
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: August 20, 2002, Statement

Text: Blake asserts that trial counsel should have questioned State witness Demetrius about his August 20, 2002, statement to law enforcement officers. Blake claims that in that statement, Demetrius indicated that Blake stated on the morning of August 12, 2002, that Blake did not want to be involved in any robbery. Demetrius also indicated that after the shooting, Demetrius saw Green with a 9 mm handgun; Green was looking for Key to instruct Key to tell law enforcement that Key was the driver; and Green tried to help Blake leave town so that Blake would not speak to law enforcement officers about the shooting. Demetrius opined that Green attempted to shift the blame for the Patel shooting to Blake and Key. Because Blake has not demonstrated that his trial counsel failed to ensure that admissible, exculpatory information from Demetrius’ August 20, 2002, - 16 - statement was presented to the jury, this allegation of deficient performance is without merit. Demetrius’ prior statements about Blake’s intent were raised at Blake’s trial. During cross-examination, trial counsel asked Demetrius about his August 20, 2002, statement, in which Demetrius had stated that Blake initially suggested robbing a drug dealer that he knew but then decided he did not feel like doing so. Next, trial counsel did not err by not cross-examining Demetrius about his prior statement regarding Green’s possession of the 9 mm handgun because this information was revealed during direct examination. Demetrius testified that on the morning of August 12, 2002, he saw Green with a revolver and a 9 mm handgun in the car, and that on the evening of August 12, 2002, Green gave him a 9 mm handgun. As for Demetrius’ August 20, 2002, statement about Green’s desire to find Key and instruct him to confess to being the driver, the statement may have been admissible as a statement of Green’s then-existing mental state, see § 90.803(3), Fla. Stat. (2005), and could be interpreted as evidence that Green was, in fact, the driver. Blake does not, however, explain how such evidence would have been helpful to his defense that while he was in the car on the morning of the shooting, he was not the shooter. Blake does not point to any evidence—available at the time of his trial—that would have supported an argument that the driver of the car - 17 - was the shooter. To the contrary, trial witness Donovan Steverson testified that upon hearing a gunshot, he looked over the fence dividing his apartment complex from the convenience store and saw a man “get in the back of the car and they sped away”; and trial witness Trisha Alderman, who also lived near the convenience store, similarly testified that she “remember[ed] seeing a man with a gun getting back in the car on the passenger’s side.” Further, evidence that Green was the driver would have been consistent with Blake’s recorded statement to law enforcement officers, in which Blake stated that Green drove the group to the convenience store and that he, Blake, rode in the backseat. Given this record, Green’s statement about intending to find Key would not have aided the defense’s theory that Green was the shooter and that Blake’s statement was not worthy of belief. Trial counsel is not deficient for failing to present evidence that is neither exculpatory nor impeaching. See Jimenez v. State, 997 So. 2d 1056, 1065 (Fla. 2008). Blake also does not explain why Demetrius’ speculation about why Green wanted Blake to leave town would be admissible. Demetrius would either be repeating Green’s out-of-court statements or offering an inadmissible lay opinion about the purpose of Green’s actions. See § 90.604, Fla. Stat. (2005) (“[A] witness may not testify to a matter unless evidence is introduced which is sufficient to support a finding that the witness has personal knowledge of the matter.”). - 18 - Likewise, Blake has not established that Demetrius’ opinion that Green was trying to place the blame for the shooting on Blake and Key would be admissible.