Opinion ID: 1784508
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: The majority's first obstacle is jurisdiction. There is none. The majority concludes that the district court applied the wrong standard for procedural prejudice and thereby created conflict with two of our decisions  State v. Schopp, 653 So.2d 1016 (Fla.1995), and Pender v. State, 700 So.2d 664 (Fla.1997). To the contrary, the district court followed them as closely as it possibly could have. The majority quotes our decision in Schopp at great length, noting its emphasis on procedural, as opposed to substantive, prejudice. See majority op. at 1146-48. As the majority notes, Schopp held that in determining whether the State's discovery violation was harmless, the issue is whether the undisclosed information would have affected the defendant's trial strategy (procedural prejudice). Specifically, we stated, [t]he defense is procedurally prejudiced if there is a reasonable possibility that the defendant's trial preparation or strategy would have been materially different had the violation not occurred. Trial preparation or strategy should be considered materially different if it reasonably could have benefited the defendant. Schopp, 653 So.2d at 1020. That is precisely the standard the district court applied. The court wrote: A violation is harmful if the defense is procedurally prejudiced. Pender [, 700 So.2d at 666]; Schopp [, 653 So.2d at 1016]. The defense is procedurally prejudiced if there is a reasonable possibility that the defendant's trial preparation or strategy would have been materially different had the violation not occurred. Pender; Schopp. Trial preparation or strategy will be materially different if it reasonably could have benefitted the defendant. Id. If the reviewing court finds that there is a reasonable possibility that the discovery violation prejudiced the defense, the error must be considered harmful. Id. Put another way, if the appellate court can say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that [the] defense was not procedurally prejudiced by the violation, then the error is harmless. Id. Scipio v. State, 867 So.2d 427, 430 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004) (emphasis omitted). As is evident from the five citations to both Schopp and Pender, the district court applied the same standard we announced in those cases. In applying this standard, the district court concluded that, had the defense known about the witness's change in testimony, its trial strategy could only have been one of two things. One, it would not have called the witness. Clearly, the outcome of this case would not have been affected given the multiple eyewitness testimonies concerning Scipio's shooting Smith inside the Inn. Or second, the defense would have called the witness and sought to impeach him, to present the jury with his prior testimony. That is, in effect, what happened in this case, which if anything, was more favorable to Scipio than not having called the witness. Id. at 431. As this quote demonstrates, the district court, applying Schopp and Pender, analyzed whether the State's discovery error materially hindered the defendant's trial preparation or strategy. Its conclusion was no. Id. at 430. However, it cautioned that [i]n a different case where the evidence is less overwhelming, or a recanting witness more material, the same sort of discovery error might mandate reversal for a new trial. Id. at 431. The majority takes issue with the district court's consideration of the outcome of this case, claiming it expressly and directly conflicts with Schopp. As the majority acknowledges, however, see majority op. at 1146, language in Schopp directly supports the district court's reference to the verdict. The majority minimizes its importance, calling the passage brief and inconsistent. Id. at 1148. But it is not so brief, and not necessarily inconsistent. The passage from Schopp reads in full: This analysis recognizes the procedural prejudice inherent in discovery violations. It also takes into account the fact that errors that reasonably could affect trial preparation or strategy are prejudicial, and therefore harmful for appellate purposes, only when a change in trial tactics reasonably could have benefited the defendant by resulting in a favorable verdict. We recognize that in the vast majority of cases it will be readily apparent that the record is insufficient to support a finding of harmless error. We also recognize that where the defendant's trial preparation or strategy reasonably could have been affected by the discovery violation it will be difficult to determine whether the verdict could have differed had the violation not occurred or had the trial court acted to avert the prejudice. However, the mere fact that there is a high probability that a given error will be found harmful does not justify categorizing the error as per se reversible. 653 So.2d at 1021 (emphases added). As if these two paragraphs were not clear enough, we then explained in applying the law to the facts that because Schopp effectively `won' his case [by persuading the jury to convict on a lesser included offense], there is no reasonable possibility that a change in trial tactics could have benefited him. Id. at 1022. These repeated references to the verdict cannot be dismissed as accidental. Schopp went to great pains to clarify that the procedural prejudice standard requires a reasonable possibility both that (a) the State's discovery error materially hindered the defendant's trial preparation or strategy, and that (b) preventing the error might have benefited the defendant by enabling a more favorable outcome. We derived the second prong from the harmless error analysis in State v. DiGuilio, 491 So.2d 1129, 1135 (Fla.1986), which requires the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict or, alternatively stated, that there is no reasonable possibility that the error contributed to the conviction. See Schopp, 653 So.2d at 1020 (citing DiGuilio and requiring [a]pplication of a harmless error analysis in this context). The district court in this case applied Schopp's harmless error standard and concluded that neither prong was satisfied because the State's discovery error did not materially hinder[ ] Scipio's trial preparation or strategy, and the outcome of this case would not have been affected. Scipio, 867 So.2d at 430-31. Notwithstanding the fact that Schopp offers clear textual support for the district court's analysis, the majority contends that the two decisions conflict because of another sentence in Schopp, which the majority interprets as forbidding any consideration of the outcome. The sentence is actually a quotation from Smith v. State, 500 So.2d 125 (Fla.1986), the case from which Schopp receded. Smith explained that the question of `prejudice' in a discovery context is not dependent upon the potential impact of the undisclosed evidence on the fact finder but rather upon its impact on the defendant's ability to prepare for trial. Id. at 126. We acknowledged in Schopp that, although Smith no longer reflects the current state of the law, [t]his distinction between substantive and procedural prejudice in the context of discovery violations continues to be a valid one. 653 So.2d at 1019. Based on this language, the majority deems Schopp internally inconsistent and conflicting, majority op. at 1146, 1148, and concludes that the district court's decision conflicts with Schopp by favoring the outcome-considering part of it over the outcome-ignoring part. Majority op. at 1144. The strange result of this position is that the majority resolves the conflict by simultaneously receding from Schopp and disapproving the district court's decision as conflicting with it. I cannot join in this reasoning. Schopp is not internally inconsistent. It merely recognizes, as did DiGuilio, which Schopp cites, that the harmless error standard necessarily involves determining the possible effect of the error on the outcome. Although Schopp rejects an exclusive focus on the potential impact of the undisclosed evidence on the fact finder, it permits inquiry into the outcome as part of the analysis. Thus, in determining prejudice the issue is whether the discovery violation prevented the defense from adjusting its trial preparation or strategy in a way that might have benefited the defendant by affecting the outcome. As Schopp explains, under this approach every conceivable course of action must be considered  including, for example, the possibility that the defense may have decided to pursue other evidence, other theories of the case, or other styles of presentation. 653 So.2d at 1020. In contrast, the approach Schopp rejected would focus narrowly on the undisclosed evidence. We did not contradict ourselves by embracing the broader approach. Even if Schopp were internally inconsistent, as the majority claims, it would not create a basis for jurisdiction. We have jurisdiction to review district court decisions that expressly and directly conflict with ours, not those that faithfully apply the allegedly conflicting language in our [own] opinion. Majority op. at 1146. We must wait for a district court to reject or misapply Schopp, or at least to interpret it in a way that conflicts with the analysis of another district court. None of that happened here. The majority also contends that the district court's decision conflicts with Pender, a more recent decision of ours. In Pender, we disapproved a misapplication of the procedural prejudice standard, stating: [T]he [district] court did not indicate that in conducting a harmless error analysis it considered the impact of the State's discovery violation or the trial court's failure to conduct a Richardson hearing on the defendants' trial preparation. Instead, it appears that the district court, in direct contravention of Schopp, considered the impact of these errors on the fact finder. The opinion... seems to indicate that the district court based its holding on a finding that the defendants did not experience any substantive prejudice. 700 So.2d at 666. The district court in this case did not commit the same error as did the district court in Pender, which utterly failed to consider how the discovery error affected the defense's trial preparation. To the contrary, the decision below turn[ed] on whether the discovery error . . . materially hindered Scipio's trial preparation or strategy. Scipio, 867 So.2d at 430 (citing Pender and Schopp ). Because the error had no such effect, the district court found no procedural prejudice. Id. This analysis complied with Pender. The majority portrays Pender as not only demanding a focus on trial preparation and strategy, but also prohibiting consideration of whether the strategic changes would have affected the verdict. This reading of Pender is flawed. Pender only disapproved of decisions in direct contravention of Schopp,  700 So.2d at 666, and thus cannot be construed as receding from the language in Schopp that expressly permitted consideration of the outcome. Moreover, only two months after Pender, we decided another case in which, as part of our prejudice analysis, we again considered the outcome. See Pomeranz v. State, 703 So.2d 465, 469 (Fla.1997) (holding that a discovery error was harmless because [w]e cannot see how these potential changes in trial tactics would have resulted in a more favorable outcome). Thus, the proposition that Pender revised the Schopp analysis is untenable. Because the district court's decision in this case closely followed Schopp and did not commit the error disapproved by Pender, there is no express and direct conflict with either case. I would therefore discharge review as improvidently granted.