Opinion ID: 1090109
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Litigate the Motion to Suppress Franqui's Confession

Text: Franqui raised a number of claims in the trial court involving an assertion that trial counsel did not properly litigate a motion to suppress Franqui's confession. Prior to the guilt phase in the instant trial, defense counsel agreed to the trial court's use of the transcripts from a hearing on a similar suppression motion filed in the Hialeah murder case. Upon review, we find no fault with the lower court's conclusion that trial counsel's decision to stipulate to the use of the transcripts from the Hialeah case hearing was reasonable. [5] After being detained and questioned, Franqui gave two separate statements to the police on the same day regarding both the instant crime and the Hialeah murder, and trial counsel ultimately moved to suppress both confessions in each case. However, the evidentiary hearing on the motion to suppress the Hialeah statement occurred a little more than one year prior to the hearing on the instant motion to suppress. The record of the hearing in the Hialeah case indicates that the focus of that hearing was on both the circumstances of the instant crime and statement as well as the Hialeah crime and confession. The testimony from all of the witnesses presented at that hearing, Franqui included, focused on both statements: the officers detailed when Franqui was read his rights during the day and in relation to which crime, and defense counsel Cohen questioned each of them in great detail, including asking them to specify at which points Franqui supposedly agreed to keep talking without counsel present. Thus, the underlying circumstances relating to the issues Franqui is now claiming were not fully explored in the instant hearing were in fact comprehensively explored during the previous hearing in the Hialeah case in front of the same judge and with the same parties. As defense counsel Cohen explained to the court in agreeing to the stipulation for use of the transcripts, any testimony and cross-examination of Officers Crawford, Rivers and Smith was likely to be identical. [6] Under these circumstances, defense counsel could have reasonably concluded that requiring these officers to be called again was unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. Given the comprehensive nature of the first hearing in the Hialeah case on a statement taken the exact same day arising out of the same interrogation and involving all of the same parties, being heard in front of the same judge, we find no error in the postconviction court's conclusion that Cohen acted reasonably in stipulating to the use of the prior testimony of Rivers, Crawford and Smith at the hearing on the instant motion to suppress. Franqui asserts further, however, that despite the comprehensive nature of the prior hearing, trial counsel was ineffective at the instant suppression hearing for failing to present evidence of Franqui's mental illness and expert testimony on coerciveness. First, Franqui argues that trial counsel should have presented evidence of his supposed mental illness at the suppression hearing to demonstrate that Franqui was not capable of making a valid waiver of his rights when making his confession. He asserts that defense counsel should have presented a letter from Dr. Jethro Toomer to trial counsel Cohen, which Cohen received during the period between the trial court's denial of the motion to suppress in the Hialeah case and the hearing on the motion to suppress in the instant case. This letter makes a number of findings based on two meetings between Dr. Toomer and Franqui, including observations of personality disorganization, overall mental confusion and spotty memory. The letter stated that Franqui suffers from extreme mental and emotional disturbance and severe impairment of cognitive functioning, and concluded by characterizing Franqui as an individual whose behavior is characterized by a pervasive pattern of instability with resulting behavior that is impulsive, irrational, maladaptive and self-destructive. At the evidentiary hearing below, Cohen testified that he did not utilize this information at the suppression hearing because Dr. Toomer had been retained solely for use at the penalty phase and also because, throughout their relationship, Cohen did not observe any signs of mental impairment in Franqui that would cause him to conclude that Franqui was incompetent during his police questioning. We find no error in the trial court's conclusion that counsel's actions were reasonable and did not constitute ineffectiveness under Strickland. First, assuming Cohen believed his client, Franqui's testimony from the Hialeah suppression hearing indicates that he understood his rights, that he wished to invoke them, and that he only gave the statements he did due to police misconduct, including blatant abuse and coercion. In other words, Franqui's testimony at the suppression hearing asserted no waiver was given and raised no issues of mental competency. Rather, his testimony at the suppression hearing directly contradicted that of the police, affirmatively asserting that he understood his rights and invoked them, but that his invocation was ignored and that he was abused and coerced by the police into giving a confession. Franqui does not suggest how this prior testimony could have been utilized during the instant suppression hearing had Cohen adopted a new strategy claiming that Franqui was incompetent. In addition, as noted above, Cohen testified at the postconviction evidentiary hearing that he had observed no mental problems with Franqui. He also stated that Dr. Toomer had been called as a witness during the penalty phase in the Hialeah trial six months prior to the suppression hearing in the instant case; the same trial judge found substantial problems with Toomer's credibility. [7] In fact, in the Hialeah sentencing order, issued some six months prior to the suppression hearing, the trial court expressly rejected Dr. Toomer's credibility and his opinions. The trial court questioned Dr. Toomer's leap from a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder to the conclusion that Franqui was acting under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance. The trial court concluded that every piece of evidence presented in this trial, penalty phase and sentencing hearings, with the exception of Dr. Toomer's testimony, definitely establishes that Mr. Franqui is not mentally retarded. Considering all of these circumstances, we find no error in the postconviction court's conclusion that deficient performance by defense counsel has not been established given Strickland's presumption that trial counsel's performance was not ineffective. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel's challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel's perspective at the time.). There is competent, substantial evidence in the record to support these rulings by the postconviction court. Franqui next argues that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present expert testimony at the suppression hearing regarding the effect of police coercion during interrogations. Franqui's witness at the postconviction evidentiary hearing below, Dr. Meisner, testified as an expert in police interrogations and confessions, expressing the opinion that coercion could have played a role in Franqui's confession. However, this witness also explained that there was only one expert who routinely gave testimony in this field in the early 1990s; furthermore, there was no showing that such an expert was known to or readily available to defense counsel at the time of Franqui's trial. In addition, trial counsel is granted great latitude in decisions regarding the use of expert witnesses. Thus, we find no error in the lower court's conclusion that deficient performance has not been established pursuant to a Strickland analysis for failing to call an expert on interrogation tactics at the suppression hearing, given that the use of experts in this area of the law was relatively new and unexplored at the time of Franqui's trial.