Court Opinion

ID: 9839205
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-12 15:00:47.516904+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:42.275299
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-12461    Document: 40-1     Date Filed: 09/12/2023   Page: 1 of 8

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                No. 21-12461
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

       JULIO GARCIA, IV,
                                                   Petitioner-Appellant,
       versus
       SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
       ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF FLORIDA,

                                                Respondents-Appellees.

                           ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Middle District of Florida
                  D.C. Docket No. 8:17-cv-02374-KKM-AAS
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       2                       Opinion of the Court                  21-12461

                            ____________________

       Before LUCK, LAGOA, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Julio Garcia appeals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C.
       section 2254 habeas petition. We affirm.

           FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
              Garcia was charged in 2013 with three counts of aggravated
       battery with a deadly weapon under Florida Statutes section
       784.045. The charges stemmed from a fight between Garcia and
       three other men—Jesus Rivera, Justin Hageman, and Tyson Dun-
       lap—outside a Polk County bar.
              At trial, the state introduced evidence that Garcia started the
       fight after a drunken argument outside the bar. During the fight,
       Garcia used a knife to stab Mr. Dunlap in the side and slice Mr.
       Rivera across the face and hand. Garcia’s defense theory was that
       the victims attacked first, and he used the knife to defend himself
       and his friends.
              During the jury charge conference, the state trial court of-
       fered to instruct the jury on the “justifiable use of deadly force” de-
       fense but, the court explained, the jury didn’t need an additional
       instruction for the justifiable use of non-deadly force. Garcia said
       that he would “just like to keep that in there,” referring to the non-
       deadly force instruction. The state objected because the evidence
       was undisputed Garcia had used deadly force and a second
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       21-12461               Opinion of the Court                         3

       instruction for non-deadly force would confuse the jury. In re-
       sponse, the state trial court said it was not inclined to include the
       non-deadly force instruction but would reserve ruling to research
       the issue.
              With the benefit of some extra time, the state trial court de-
       clined to give the additional non-deadly force instruction. Garcia
       did not object to the final instructions as read to the jury.
             The jury convicted Garcia of two counts of aggravated bat-
       tery. After denying his new trial motion, the state trial court sen-
       tenced Garcia to two consecutive fifteen year prison terms.
              On appeal, Garcia argued that the state trial court erred in
       denying his new trial motion because the verdict was against the
       greater weight of the evidence. The state appeals court disagreed
       and affirmed Garcia’s conviction.
              Garcia then petitioned the state appeals court for habeas re-
       lief because his appellate counsel was ineffective. His appellate
       counsel was ineffective, Garcia claimed, because counsel didn’t ar-
       gue on appeal that the state trial court erred by leaving out the non-
       deadly force instruction from the jury charge. The state appeals
       court denied the habeas petition without an opinion.
              Garcia raised the same claim in his federal habeas petition
       under section 2254. Again, Garcia alleged that his appellate counsel
       was ineffective because counsel did not raise the state trial court’s
       error in failing to instruct the jury on the justifiable use of non-
       deadly force.
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                  21-12461

               The district court denied Garcia’s federal habeas petition.
       Whether appellate counsel was ineffective, the district court ex-
       plained, depended on whether an appeal based on the non-deadly
       force instruction would have been successful. And that issue, in
       turn, depended on a question of state law that the state appeals
       court necessarily answered by denying Garcia’s habeas petition.
       The district court reasoned that the denial of Garcia’s state habeas
       petition indicated either that Garcia had failed to preserve for direct
       appeal the argument that the state trial court erred in failing to give
       the non-deadly force instruction, or that, even if the jury instruc-
       tion issue was preserved, it would have failed on the merits. Either
       way, because Garcia’s claim failed as a matter of state law, the dis-
       trict court concluded, his appellate counsel was not ineffective for
       failing to raise it.
               After the district court denied the section 2254 petition, Gar-
       cia appealed. We issued a certificate of appealability on the ques-
       tion whether appellate counsel was constitutionally ineffective for
       failing to argue that Garcia was entitled to a non-deadly force jury
       instruction.

                            STANDARD OF REVIEW
               We review de novo the district court’s denial of a section
       2254 habeas petition. Reed v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 593 F.3d 1217,
       1239 (11th Cir. 2010). A state prisoner may obtain federal habeas
       relief “only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the
       Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C.
       § 2254(a). But where, as here, a state prisoner seeks review of an
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       21-12461                Opinion of the Court                         5

       issue that state courts have already adjudicated, he must also show
       that the state courts’ judgment “was contrary to, or involved an
       unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as de-
       termined by the Supreme Court of the United States” or depended
       on “an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evi-
       dence presented in the State court proceeding.” Id. § 2254(d).

                                  DISCUSSION
              The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants the
       right to effective assistance of counsel. Strickland v. Washington, 466
       U.S. 668, 686 (1984). A defendant can show he was denied effective
       assistance where (1) his “counsel’s performance was deficient,” and
       (2) “the deficient performance prejudiced [his] defense.” Id. at 687.
              When we review a habeas petition under section 2254(d),
       “[t]he question is not whether a federal court believes the state
       court’s determination under the Strickland standard was incorrect
       but whether that determination was unreasonable—a substantially
       higher threshold.” Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111, 123 (2009)
       (marks and citation omitted). Our review here is thus “doubly def-
       erential” to the state appeals court’s decision denying Garcia’s
       claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. Id. And here,
       there is yet a third layer of deference: because the effectiveness of
       Garcia’s counsel depended on the validity of a state-law defense,
       we “must defer to the state’s construction of its own law” in deter-
       mining whether the state court’s assessment of ineffective assis-
       tance was reasonable. Pinkney v. Sec’y, DOC, 876 F.3d 1290, 1295
       (11th Cir. 2017).
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       6                       Opinion of the Court                  21-12461

              The state appeals court denied Garcia’s habeas petition with-
       out explanation. Without a reasoned decision from the state court,
       we must (1) “determine what arguments or theories” it could have
       relied on, and then (2) decide “whether it is possible fairminded ju-
       rists could disagree that those arguments or theories are incon-
       sistent with the holding in a prior decision of the Supreme Court.”
       Id. (quoting Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 98 (2011) (alteration
       accepted). We therefore discuss the two possible rationales the
       state appeals court could have relied on to deny Garcia’s ineffective
       assistance claim: (1) Garcia did not preserve the issue for appeal;
       and (2) he was not entitled to the non-deadly force instruction as a
       matter of state law.
               First, the state appeals court could have reasonably con-
       cluded that appellate counsel wasn’t deficient because Garcia, as a
       matter of state law, hadn’t properly objected to the exclusion of the
       non-deadly force instruction at trial. See Castor v. State, 365 So. 2d
       701, 703 (Fla. 1978) (“Where the alleged error is giving or failing to
       give a particular jury instruction, we have invariably required the
       assertion of a timely objection. . . . [O]bjections must be explicit
       [and] direct the attention of the trial judge to the purported error
       in a way which will allow him to respond in a timely fashion.”). At
       trial, Garcia said that he “would just like to keep” the non-deadly
       force instruction and that he’d “still be asking for it” after the trial
       court indicated it was inclined to omit the instruction. Later, Gar-
       cia didn’t raise any objection to the final jury instructions—which
       lacked a non-deadly force instruction.
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       21-12461                Opinion of the Court                         7

               Based on this record, the state appeals court reasonably
       could have concluded that Garcia did not preserve his jury instruc-
       tion issue as a matter of state law. Without a proper objection,
       appellate counsel would not have been deficient for failing to raise
       the jury instruction issue on appeal. See Pinkney, 876 F.3d at 1298
       (explaining that “a petitioner cannot show prejudice from the fail-
       ure of appellate counsel to raise an issue that would not have been
       considered on appeal because it was not raised in the trial court”);
       Diaz v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 402 F.3d 1136, 1142 (11th Cir. 2005)
       (“Under Florida law, an error that passed without objection cannot
       be raised on appeal; appellate counsel, therefore, is not ineffective
       for failure to raise a meritless argument.” (citation omitted)).
              Second, the state appeals court could have determined that
       Garcia’s appellate counsel wasn’t deficient because, on the merits,
       Garcia wasn’t entitled to the non-deadly force instruction under
       Florida law. In Florida, the use of a knife in an altercation may
       constitute non-deadly force or deadly force, depending on the cir-
       cumstances. See Larsen v. State, 82 So. 3d 971, 974 (Fla. Dist. Ct.
       App. 2011) (“A knife can be used with deadly or without deadly
       force.”). But a defendant is not entitled to a jury instruction on a
       particular defense unless there is at least some “evidence in the rec-
       ord to support it.” See Cliff Berry, Inc. v. State, 116 So. 3d 394, 407
       (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2012).
              At Garcia’s trial, the undisputed evidence showed that he
       used a knife to stab Mr. Dunlap in the side and slash Mr. Rivera
       across the face and hand. The state appeals court reasonably could
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       8                       Opinion of the Court                  21-12461

       have concluded that this undisputed evidence only supported the
       use of deadly force instruction rather than the non-deadly force in-
       struction. See Thompson v. State, 257 So. 3d 575, 581 (Fla. Dist. Ct.
       App. 2018) (finding that the use of a 15-inch-blade sword to slash
       and stab a victim’s torso was deadly force as a matter of law);
       Larsen, 82 So. 3d at 975 (explaining that a sharp knife used to strike
       the victim in the neck constituted deadly force as a matter of law);
       Waldo v. State, 728 So. 2d 280, 281 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1999) (holding
       that the act of thrusting a knife into a victim’s chest constituted
       deadly force as a matter of law), quashed on other grounds, 759 So. 2d
       674 (Fla. 2000). If so, then it reasonably could have denied Garcia’s
       state habeas petition because “[a]ppellate counsel is not ineffective
       for failing to raise claims ‘reasonably considered to be without
       merit.’” United States v. Nyhuis, 211 F.3d 1340, 1344 (11th Cir. 2000)
       (quoting Alvord v. Wainwright, 725 F.2d 1282, 1291 (11th Cir. 1984)).
               Because “state courts are the final arbiters of state law, . . .
       federal habeas courts should not second-guess them on such mat-
       ters.” Agan v. Vaughn, 119 F.3d 1538, 1549 (11th Cir. 1997). So, if
       the state appeals court found that appellate counsel was not defi-
       cient because state law foreclosed a successful appellate argument
       regarding the jury instruction, we will not second guess that judg-
       ment. And, if these were the grounds the state appeals court relied
       on, it didn’t unreasonably apply Strickland’s deficient performance
       prong in doing so. See Freeman v. Att’y Gen., 536 F.3d 1225, 1233
       (11th Cir. 2008) (“A lawyer cannot be deficient for failing to raise a
       meritless claim.”).
              AFFIRMED.