Court Opinion

ID: 9472729
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:08:38.861363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:06.098397
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent from the majority’s disposition of this case on two issues: (1) petitioner’s claim that he was denied an individualized sentencing hearing as required by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution and recognized in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), and (2) petitioner’s claim that the trial court’s imposition of the death sentence after his rejection of a proffered guilty plea by the court violated his rights as guaranteed by the Eighth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Since I would hold that petitioner has clearly stated a claim on which relief may be granted on both of these grounds and that proof of these claims depends in part on facts outside the record before us, I would remand this case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing as to both claims. Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63, 97 S.Ct. 1621, 52 L.Ed.2d 136 (1977).
Petitioner’s sentencing hearing was held on February 4, 1977. At that time, the post-Furman 1972 Florida capital sentencing statute governing the sentencer’s consideration of mitigating factors, Fla.Stat. Ann. § 921.141(2) and (6), had been interpreted in Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976), and Cooper v. State, 336 So.2d 1133 (Fla.1976). In Proffitt v. Florida, the Supreme Court in considering the constitutionality of Florida’s capital sentencing scheme as a whole noted that, unlike the statute’s limitation of the senteneer’s consideration of aggravating factors to those listed in the statute, “[tjhere is no such limiting language intro-' ducing the list of statutory mitigating factors.” 428 U.S. at 250 n. 8, 96 S.Ct. at 2965 *1343n. 8. Or, as the Court later stated in Lockett v. Ohio:
In Proffitt v. Florida, six Members of this Court assumed, in approving the statute, that the range of mitigating factors listed in the statute was not exclu-sive____ None of the statutes we sustained in Gregg [428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859] and the companion cases clearly operated at that time to prevent the sentencer from considering any aspect of the defendant’s character and record or any circumstances of his offense as an independently mitigating factor.
438 U.S. at 606, 607, 98 S.Ct. at 2965, 2966. Six days after the decision in Proffitt v. Florida, Cooper v. State was decided by the Florida Supreme Court. In Cooper, the Florida Supreme Court apparently held, in language quoted in full below,1 that Section 921.141 did limit the sentencer’s consideration of mitigating factors to those listed in the statute. Later cases binding on this Court have so interpreted Cooper. Ford v. Strickland, 696 F.2d 804, 812 (11th Cir.1983) (en banc) (“Ford contends he cannot be faulted for failing to raise the issue ... because Florida Supreme Court decisions decided prior to trial indicated only statutory mitigating circumstances could be considered. The court ruled explicitly to this effect two years after trial in Cooper v. State .... Lockett v. Ohio, ... a direct reversal of this view, was not decided until two years later ____”); Foster v. Strickland, 707 F.2d 1339, 1346 (11th Cir.1983); Proffitt v. Wainwright, 685 F.2d 1227, 1238 and n. 18 (11th Cir.1982). Cooper was the controlling decision of Florida law in effect at the time of petitioner’s sentencing trial.
Two years after the decision in Cooper and one year after petitioner’s sentencing trial, Lockett v. Ohio, supra, was decided. In Lockett, the Supreme Court held that the limitation of a senteneer’s consideration to an exclusive statutory list of mitigating factors violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Two months later, in Son-ger v. State, 365 So.2d 696 (Fla.1978) (on rehearing), the Florida Supreme Court rejected a Lockett challenge to the statute based on Cooper. The court found that the Cooper language concerning the exclusivity of statutory mitigating factors was dicta and that “Cooper is not apropos to the problems addressed in Lockett." Id. at 700. The court held that its construction of Section 921.141(6) since enactment had been that “all relevant circumstances may *1344be considered in mitigation, and that the factors listed in the statute merely indicate the principal factors to be considered.” Id.
In light of this history, I agree with the majority that at the time of petitioner’s sentencing trial, after Cooper but before the clarification in Songer, the statute was, at best, ambiguous: capable of both a constitutional construction in accordance with Lockett as not limiting the sentencer’s consideration to statutory mitigating factors, as in Proffitt v. Florida, and an unconstitutional construction that the statutory list of mitigating factors was exclusive, as in Cooper. See Proffitt v. Wainwright, supra, at 1238 and nn. 18, 19. Stated differently, as the petitioner argues, at the time of his sentencing trial, the statute was unconstitutional due to its ambiguity.2
As with all but certain First Amendment attacks based on a statute’s ambiguity, however, petitioner must also demonstrate that the unconstitutional interpretation of the statute was actually followed at his sentencing trial; that, in short, the statute was unconstitutional as applied to him. To meet this element of stating a claim on which relief may be granted, petitioner alleges that the unconstitutional Cooper interpretation of the statute affected his sentencing proceedings because his counsel reasonably relied on Cooper as the controlling statement of Florida law in his preparation and presentation at the sentencing trial. Unlike the majority, I cannot conclude based on this record that petitioner’s allegations in support of his claim “conclusively show that the [petitioner is] entitled to no relief,” or that these allegations are so “palpably incredible ... so patently frivolous or false” that summary dismissal is warranted. Blackledge v. Allison, supra, 431 U.S., at 73, 76, 97 S.Ct. at 1628, 1630. To the contrary, the lack of any evidentiary hearing in the state or district courts to develop a record by which we can evaluate this claim and the proffer of evidence supporting this claim by the petitioner in the district court demonstrate that the petitioner is entitled to an evidentiary hearing on the issue of whether the unconstitutional construction of the statute actually affected the course of his sentencing proceeding.
In support of his motion for an evidentia-ry hearing in the district court, petitioner alleged that his trial counsel, Tabscott, would testify that at the time he represented petitioner at the sentencing trial he believed that Cooper limited the sentencer’s consideration to statutory mitigating factors, and that Tabscott would testify that he “focused upon the statutory mitigating circumstances in his pre-trial investigation and preparation as well as in his presentation of evidence and argument at trial.” Petitioner proffered an affidavit by Tab-scott in support of these allegations. In this affidavit, Tabscott states that “during my representation of Mr. Hitchcock, my perception was that the consideration of mitigating circumstances was limited to the factors enumerated in the statute.”
Petitioner further alleged, and proffered evidence in support of his allegations, that significant evidence of nonstatutory mitigating factors could have been presented at his sentencing hearing “had Mr. Tab-scott believed that the law permitted the presentation of such evidence.” Petitioner proffered the testimony and report of a psychologist who had examined him as establishing the nonstatutory mitigating factors that his behavior in committing the crime was inconsistent with his established patterns of behavior and that he had great *1345potential for rehabilitation.3 Petitioner also proffered testimony and affidavits of various family members attesting his difficult childhood and his good character.
The record of petitioner’s sentencing hearing does not contradict the affidavit of petitioner’s counsel that he believed only statutory mitigating factors could be presented at his hearing. Nor does the record reveal that substantial nonstatutory mitigating evidence was in fact presented. Only one witness, the petitioner’s brother, testified at the sentencing hearing as to circumstances that could arguably be identified as nonstatutory mitigating factors: the petitioner’s father had died of cancer, petitioner’s mother worked on a farm, and the witness had allowed petitioner to babysit his children. Further testimony from this witness that petitioner's habit of “sucking on” automotive gasoline seemed to affect him mentally was argued by counsel as a statutory psychological mitigating factor. The bulk of the argument by petitioner’s counsel was an evaluation of whether the statutory mitigating factors did or did not apply in this case. Petitioner’s counsel reminded the sentencing jury of earlier testimony concerning petitioner’s background, but he did not argue this testimony as a mitigating factor, asking only that the jury consider it “for whatever purposes you may deem appropriate.” In short, the slender evidence from the state sentencing hearing record that some mitigating factors not listed in the statute were, to a limited extent, before the sentencing jury does not conclusively establish that petitioner’s counsel in fact believed that such evidence could be, and was, presented and fully argued to the jury as nonstatutory mitigating factors.
Nor does the precedent of this Court indicate that petitioner’s proffer was insufficient to entitle him to an evidentiary hearing. Proffitt v. Wainwright, supra, rejected a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel based on an attorney’s affidavit that he had relied on an interpretation of Florida law that precluded the presentation of non-statutory mitigating factors:
[T]he defense attorney’s belief that he could not, under the Florida statute, introduce evidence of mitigating factors not listed in Fla.Stat. § 921.141(6) was entirely reasonable. His decision not to call witnesses at the penalty stage to testify about appellant’s general character and background was therefore justifiable and fully within the sixth amendment standard of reasonably effective assistance.
685 F.2d at 1248. The petitioner in this case, unlike the petitioner in Proffitt, challenges the Florida statute as applied to him. As a necessary step in his argument that the statute was ambiguous and that the unconstitutional interpretation of the statute governed his sentencing hearing through his attorney’s reliance on Cooper, petitioner claims that his attorney reasonably relied on Cooper. Proffitt, then, in fact supports petitioner’s attack on the statute. In Ford v. Strickland, supra, this Court held that the jury instructions given at the defendant’s sentencing hearing did not result in the jury’s perceiving that it was limited only to the consideration of statutory mitigating factors because both the trial court and counsel did not so perceive the law. In Foster v. Strickland, supra, the Court held that no prejudice had been shown from the defendant’s failure to object to similar jury instructions because the defendant did not proffer any nonstatu-tory mitigating evidence to support his claim. Neither Ford nor Foster speaks to the present case in which the petitioner has proffered both evidence that his counsel perceived Florida law to limit the presentation of mitigating evidence to those factors listed in the statute and evidence that substantial nonstatutory mitigating evidence was available.
*1346In sum, I would hold the evidence proffered by the petitioner to the district court sufficient to entitle him to an evidentiary hearing on his allegations that, but for his counsel’s reasonable reliance on the Florida Supreme Court’s interpretation of the statute as precluding the introduction of non-statutory mitigating evidence, such evidence would have been investigated and presented at his sentencing hearing. Although the inference is clear from the affidavit and petitioner’s allegations, I recognize that the proffered affidavit does not explicitly state this causal relationship between counsel's reliance on Cooper and the course of his sentencing hearing. This does not, however, as the majority seems to assume, require a summary dismissal of petitioner’s claims, but rather it is in both law and logic further demonstration of the need for an evidentiary hearing in this case. We cannot conclusively determine from the evidence before us whether petitioner’s allegations of this causal relationship are indeed fact. If, as petitioner alleges, his counsel’s reliance on Cooper as limiting the sentencer’s consideration to statutory mitigating factors precluded counsel from investigating or presenting available evidence of nonstatutory mitigating factors, then petitioner has demonstrated that the unconstitutional interpretation of the ambiguous statute did affect his sentencing hearing, and relief should be granted.
I would further hold that petitioner has stated a claim of constitutional deprivation through his allegations that, prior to trial, the trial court approved of the prosecution’s offer of a plea agreement of life imprisonment, and thus the trial court at least implicitly agreed to impose life imprisonment as a sentence if petitioner were to accept this offer, and after trial the court sentenced petitioner to death without making written findings as to why before trial a life sentence was proper and after trial the death sentence was imposed.
Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 98 S.Ct. 663, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978), relied on by both the majority and the district court, does not apply to the present case. Bordenkircher involved the limited factual situation where a state prosecutor carried out a threat to re-indict the defendant on a more serious charge if the defendant did not plead guilty. Bordenkircher did not involve either the court’s participation in the plea bargaining process or the possible sentence of the death penalty. Both of these factors, present in this case, distinguish the proper analysis from that in Bor-denkircher and demonstrate that petitioner has stated a claim of constitutional deprivation.
In North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969), the Supreme Court held that a state court could not impose a greater sentence on a defendant after re-trial following a successful appeal unless “the reasons for [its] doing so ... affirmatively appear [in the record].” Id. at 726, 89 S.Ct. at 2081. In the absence of such record evidence, the chilling effect of an inference that the defendant was being punished for exercising his constitutionally protected right to appeal or collaterally attack his conviction was held to violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
Relying on the equally protected constitutional right to trial by jury, and the equally recognized principle that the “Constitution forbids the exaction of a penalty for a defendant’s unsuccessful choice to stand trial,” due to the chilling effect on the exercise of this right, Smith v. Wainwright, 664 F.2d 1194, 1196 (11th Cir.1981), the Ninth Circuit has held in noncapital cases that:
[O]nce it appears in the record that the court has taken a hand in plea bargaining, that a tentative sentence has been discussed, and that a harsher sentence has followed a breakdown in negotiations, the record must show that no improper weight was given the failure to plead guilty. In such a case, the record must affirmatively show that the court sentenced the defendant solely upon the facts of his case and his personal history, and not as punishment for his refusal to plead guilty.
United States v. Stockwell, 472 F.2d 1186, 1187-88 (9th Cir.1973).
Moreover, the Supreme Court has expressly recognized that the Eighth Amendment’s heightened due process reliability requirement in capital cases applies with equal force to permissible plea bargaining practices. In United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570, 88 S.Ct. 1209, 20 L.Ed.2d 138 (1968), the Supreme Court invalidated the procedures of the Federal Kidnapping Act under which a defendant would receive á life sentence if he pleaded guilty but could *1347receive a death sentence if he chose to stand trial. In Corbitt v. New Jersey, 439 U.S. 212, 99 S.Ct. 492, 58 L.Ed.2d 466 (1978), the Supreme Court approved the practice of extending leniency for a guilty plea in noncapital cases, but expressly noted that “the death penalty, which is ‘unique in its severity and irrevocability,’ is not involved here.” Id. at 217, 99 S.Ct. at 496 (quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 187, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2931, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976)). Justice Stewart, the author of Bordenkircher, concurred in the result in Corbitt on the grounds that Jackson did not apply because the death penalty was not involved and Bordenkircher did not apply because it simply involved the prosecutor’s acting within the adversary system and not a state statute as in Corbitt. 439 U.S. 226-28, 99 S.Ct. 501-02.
Finally, the Supreme Court has recognized the unique power of the death penalty to coerce guilty pleas and thus chill the exercise of the constitutionally protected right to trial by jury. In Jackson, the Court stated that, because “assertion of the right to jury trial may cost [a defendant] his life,” the Federal Kidnapping Act impaired the exercise of this right. 390 U.S. at 572, 88 S.Ct. at 1211. The evil in the statute was “not that it necessarily coerces guilty pleas and jury waivers but simply that it needlessly encourages them.” Id. at 583, 88 S.Ct. at 1217.
In light of this precedent, it is clear the Eighth Amendment’s requirement that a “decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason,” Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 358, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 1204, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1977), is not met by a system in which the trial court tenders a life sentence as part of a plea bargain before trial and then imposes the death sentence without explanation after the defendant has exercised his right to stand trial. The inference that the defendant is being punished by the ultimate sanction for exercising his constitutionally protected right to trial is, without record evidence to the contrary, unacceptable. I would therefore hold that petitioner’s allegations state a claim under the Eighth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
A transcript of the plea conference at which the alleged offer to accept a life sentence in return for a guilty plea was either tendered to defendant and his counsel or approved by the trial court is not a part of the record now before this Court. No evidentiary hearing to determine the accuracy of petitioner’s crucial allegation that the trial court in fact approved such an offer has been held in either the state courts or the district court. Instead, the sole evidence before this Court on this issue are remarks made at petitioner’s sentencing hearing, see majority opinion, supra, at note 2, which are ambiguous at best and are insufficient to evaluate the accuracy of petitioner’s claim. I therefore would hold that petitioner is entitled to an eviden-tiary hearing in the district court on this issue.4
*1348ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
Before GODBOLD, Chief Judge, RO-NEY, TJOFLAT, HILL, FAY, VANCE, KRAVITCH, JOHNSON, HENDERSON, ANDERSON and CLARK, Circuit Judges.*
BY THE COURT:
A member of this court in active service having requested a poll on the application for rehearing en banc and a majority of the judges in this court in active service having voted in favor of granting a rehearing en banc,
IT IS ORDERED that the cause shall be reheard by this court en banc with oral argument on a date hereafter to be fixed. The clerk will specify a briefing schedule for the filing of en banc briefs.

. We held in State v. Dixon [283 So.2d 1 (Fla. 1973)] that the rules of evidence are to be relaxed in the sentencing hearing, but that evidence bearing no relevance to the issues was to be excluded. The sole issue in a sentencing hearing under Section 921.141, Florida Statutes (1975), is to examine in each case the itemized aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Evidence concerning other matters have no place in that proceeding any more than purely speculative matters calculated to influence a sentence through emotional appeal. Such evidence threatens the proceeding with the undisciplined discretion condemned in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972)7
As to proffered testimony concerning Cooper’s prior employment, it is argued that this evidence would tend to show that Cooper was not beyond rehabilitation. Obviously, an ability to perform gainful work is generally a prerequisite to the reformation of a criminal life, but an equally valid fact of life is that employment is not a guarantee that one will be law-abiding. Cooper has shown that by his conduct here. In any event, the Legislature chose to list the mitigating circumstances which it judged to be reliable for determining the appropriateness of a death penalty for "the most aggravated and unmitigated of serious crimes, "and we are not free to expand the list. 7 The legislative intent to avoid condemned
arbitrariness pervades the statute. Section 921.-141(2) requires the jury to render its advisory sentence "upon the following matters: (a) Whether sufficient aggravating circumstances exist as enumerated in subsection (6); (b) Whether sufficient mitigating circumstances exist as enumerated in subsection (7), which outweigh the aggravating circumstances found to exist (emphasis added). This limitation is repeated in Section 921.141(3), governing the trial court’s decision on the penalty. Both sections 921.141(6) and 921.141(7) begin with words of mandatory limitation. This may appear to be narrowly harsh, but under Furman undisciplined discretion is abhorrent whether operating for or against the death penalty. 336 So.2d at 1139 (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted).

. The majority misreads the Cooper/Lockett claims made by the petitioner. As both the briefs and the oral argument make clear, petitioner first claims that due to its ambiguity the statute was unconstitutional as applied to him and further that the unconstitutional interpretation of the statute deprived him of effective assistance of counsel by operation of state law. Petitioner then argues only in the alternative that if it was clear that the statute permitted the introduction of nonstatutory mitigating factors, his counsel was ineffective in failing to investigate and present such evidence. I address only the first of petitioner’s claims, that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to him, and do not, as does the majority, read petitioner’s argument simply as an ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

. Contrary to the majority's suggestion, this evidence, although produced through a psychologist’s evaluation, does not also fall within the statutory mitigating factor that "the capital felony was committed while the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance.” Fla.Stat.Ann. § 921.141(4)(b).

. The :warden-appellee argues that the Florida Supreme Court on direct appeal made historical findings of fact on this issue entitled to the statutory presumption of correctness under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254(d). On direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the petitioner’s claim that "the trial court offered him a sentence of life imprisonment in return for a plea of nolo contendere as charged” and thus that the trial court imposed the death sentence because he exercised his right to a jury trial. 413 So.2d at 746. The Florida Supreme Court concluded:
Hitchcock’s version of the facts surrounding this point ... is not supported. Rather, it appears from the record, as supplemented, that the judge agreed only to consider such an agreement if Hitchcock were to plead guilty. Because Hitchcock refused to consider a plea, the court never had to consider whether to accept the plea bargain. When defense counsel reminded the judge during sentencing proceedings of the plea negotiations, the judge responded, "there was never any under-
standing because your client didn’t want to consider any plea.”

Id.

Petitioner notes that the record before the Florida Supreme Court consisted solely of the remarks made during sentencing and was supplemented only by affidavits of both petitioner’s counsel and the prosecutor. The affidavit of petitioner’s counsel, executed contemporaneously with the trial proceedings, states: "Judge Paul indicated that he would accept a plea of nolo contendere as charged and that [petitioner] would be sentenced to life imprisonment." The prosecutor’s affidavit is to the contrary: "Judge Paul indicated that he would consider [the State’s] recommendation, should the ... defendant actually plead guilty as charged." Petitioner also argued to the Florida Supreme Court that, should it find the record insufficient and the affidavits contradictory, it should remand to the state habeas court for an evidentiary hearing. Based on these facts, petitioner claims that the Florida Supreme Court’s factfinding procedure *1348in resolving clearly contradictory affidavits against him, relying on the ambiguous remarks made at sentencing which can fairly be read to support both versions of the facts, and refusing to allow a hearing on the factual dispute or to reconstruct the unavailable record, was inadequate to afford him a full and fair hearing, so that its finding that the trial judge agreed only to consider an agreement if he pleaded guilty, and thus never had an opportunity to consider whether to accept the bargain, is not entitled to a presumption of correctness under Section 2254(d)(2).

 Judge Joseph W. Hatchett recused himself and did not participate in this decision.