Court Opinion

ID: 9483264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:15:34.492608+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:31.285151
License: Public Domain

HATCHETT, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the majority’s holding that Cave suffered prejudice in the penalty phase of the trial. But, the majority stops short of providing Cave with the full relief to which he is entitled. Cave’s counsel also caused him prejudice in the guilt phase of the trial. This record makes clear that Cave’s lawyer, throughout this trial, had no understanding of the doctrine of felony murder under Florida law. As the majority correctly points out, Cave’s counsel conceded that Cave was guilty of the robbery and argued his guilt to the jury. Through this absolutely incompetent performance, Cave’s lawyer convicted him and led him to the electric chair.
It is difficult to understand a justice system, especially in a capital setting, operating under a standard in which prejudice is not conclusively established when the criminal defendant’s court-appointed lawyer proves the government’s case against the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. The majority’s only attempt to explain why Cave’s lawyer’s incompetence did not constitute prejudice in the guilt phase of the
*1531trial is that Cave had confessed to the robbery. That observation simply highlights the prejudice that Cave suffered. His counsel never attacked the confession. Since Cave was not what his counsel and the majority refer to as “the shooter,” without the confession Cave may not have been convicted. If failure to attack the confession in this case is not sufficient to constitute prejudice, then no case will ever come to this court with evidence sufficient to constitute prejudice. Cave, in effect, had no lawyer at all. In fact, what he got was worse. Cave’s lawyer was his most effective prosecutor.
If ignorance of the law as to the basic elements of the offense may constitute prejudice in the penalty phase of a capital case, then it is inconceivable that the same ignorance would not constitute prejudice in the guilt phase.
I would reverse the conviction and order a new trial.