Opinion ID: 1909892
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: evidence and instruction on residual doubt

Text: Duest asserts that the trial court erred in precluding the defense from impeaching witnesses whose identifications of Duest helped establish his commission of the murder and accompanying robbery, and in denying an instruction that the jury could consider lingering doubt in rendering its advisory sentence. The trial court disallowed evidence indicating that Duest was in Massachusetts at the time of the murder in Fort Lauderdale. Duest sought to present this evidence to impeach the state witnesses who testified that on the day of the murder, they saw Duest with Pope and then later saw Duest in possession of Pope's car and jewelry box. In finding Duest guilty of the murder, the jury in Duest's 1983 trial rejected an alibi defense based on the same theory. This Court has held that a defendant's right to present evidence challenging an aggravating circumstance may not be used to relitigate the guilt determination through the introduction of evidence suggesting lingering or residual doubt. See Way v. State, 760 So.2d 903, 916 (Fla. 2000); Waterhouse v. State, 596 So.2d 1008, 1015 (Fla.1992). In Waterhouse, this Court ruled that the trial court, which had allowed a defendant convicted of felony murder to present evidence during the penalty phase that no sexual battery occurred, appropriately precluded cross-examination of state witnesses and presentation of evidence that would have called into question the defendant's guilt of the murder. See 596 So.2d at 1015. Similarly, in Way, we ruled that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the defense to question police witnesses in an attempt to establish that a fire had not been intentionally set, relevant to the murder in the course of a felony aggravator, but precluded questioning on the adequacy of the police investigation, an issue resolved against Way when he was convicted of arson at trial. See 760 So.2d at 918. We conclude that in this case, the trial court correctly applied the law in determining that the alibi evidence was inadmissible. Duest's alibi was not relevant to rebut the robbery/pecuniary gain aggravating circumstance. Additionally, Duest was not prevented from presenting evidence that the murder of Pope did not occur during the commission of a robbery. The trial court's ruling was limited to the exclusion of testimony that merely relitigated the failed alibi defense under the guise of impeachment on an aggravating circumstance. Therefore, Duest was not denied his right to present evidence or to confront adverse witnesses on the aggravating circumstance of the contemporaneous robbery. On the denial of the related jury instruction, this Court has repeatedly held that lingering or residual doubt is not a valid nonstatutory mitigating circumstance, and that a defendant has no right to an instruction thereon. See Darling v. State, 808 So.2d 145, 162 (Fla.2002) (explaining that this Court has followed United States Supreme Court precedent holding that a defendant has no right to present evidence of lingering doubt); Sims v. State, 681 So.2d 1112, 1117 (Fla. 1996) (concluding that the trial court did not err in declining to instruct the jury on imperfect self-defense as a mitigating circumstance); see also Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 U.S. 164, 173-74, 108 S.Ct. 2320, 101 L.Ed.2d 155 (1988) (rejecting the argument that the Eighth Amendment requires a capital sentencing jury to be instructed that it can consider lingering doubt evidence in mitigation). Therefore, the trial court did not err in denying the instruction in this case.