Court Opinion

ID: 9964978
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-05-01 15:03:00.978375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:50.949684
License: Public Domain

FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                 STATE OF FLORIDA
                  _____________________________

                         No. 1D2023-0496
                  _____________________________

GREGORY D. JONES JR.,

    Appellant,

    v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

    Appellee.
                  _____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Alachua County.
James M. Colaw, Judge.

                           May 1, 2024

B.L. THOMAS, J.

     The trial court denied Appellant’s motion for postconviction
relief, filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. For
the reasons outlined below, we affirm the order on appeal.

     The State charged Appellant with attempted second-degree
murder (count I), possession of a firearm by a convicted felon
(count II), and carrying a concealed firearm (count III). The victim
and two of his friends, Patricia Palmer and Andrew James, were
on their way to a party, with the victim riding in the back seat of
a vehicle being driven by James. While they were traveling to the
location of the party, a pedestrian Dantae Flagg—Appellant’s
cousin—complained that James’s vehicle had almost struck him.
Flagg and the victim exchanged words. James then drove away. At
the next red light, Flagg and some other men, including Appellant,
approached the vehicle, and another verbal altercation ensued.
The victim claimed at trial that he became afraid that the people
on foot planned to attack him and the others inside the car, and so
he tried to leave the vehicle. Although the victim did not remember
what happened after he stepped out of the car, witnesses to the
incident then heard gunshots.

     The victim was shot five times. Flagg and his companions ran
from the scene towards a black car parked nearby. Appellant ran
in a different direction.

     Shortly thereafter law enforcement stopped the black car and
detained the two people in it, Flagg and another man. Appellant
was not in the vehicle. The police found a Tommy Hilfiger hat near
the place where the vehicle had been parked. Found near the hat
was a handgun with its magazine missing. The one bullet
remaining in the chamber of the gun matched the brand and
caliber of the casings found near the victim.

     Palmer testified that she saw the victim arguing with Flagg,
and less than a minute after the victim got out of the car, she heard
gunshots and saw the victim fall. She identified Flagg as the
pedestrian who bumped into the car because she had the best view
of him during the incident, and he was the person closest to the
victim at the time of the shooting. James testified that he did not
see the men on foot approach the vehicle or notice that the victim
had exited the vehicle until the victim was a few steps away from
it. When James saw the men coming towards the vehicle, he
started to open his own door to help the victim. His hand was still
on the door handle when he heard the gunshots. He did not see the
shooting, only flashes coming from the passenger side of the
vehicle.

     The police originally suspected that the shooter was Flagg.
However, Appellant confessed in a police interview to shooting the
victim, though he claimed that he did so only to protect Flagg.
Appellant told police that he saw Flagg get into an argument after
Flagg walked in front of James’s vehicle.

     Flagg testified that he, Appellant, and two other men went to
a club where they were patted down by a bouncer before entering.

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After they left the club, James’s vehicle nearly struck Flagg when
a traffic light changed from green to red while he was crossing the
intersection. Appellant was walking a little way behind Flagg.
Flagg testified that the people in the vehicle started screaming at
him to get out of the road and that when he tried to walk away, the
vehicle came around the corner and cut him off. The victim got out
of the back seat and walked quickly towards Flagg. The victim had
his hands in his pants, with his shirt covering his hands. Flagg did
not see the victim carrying a weapon. Flagg testified that he then
turned and walked away, and as he did so, he heard gunshots
somewhere close to him.

     The State played a recording of a police interview in which
Flagg had said that after the shots were fired, one of the people
running was a man in blue clothes with a blue Tommy Hilfiger hat
on. He said he was not sure who the man was. Later in the
interview, Flagg said that the victim was “speed walk[ing]”
towards him, and that he saw the man in blue take a gun out of
his pants and shoot the victim. Flagg referred to the man in blue
as “L.G.” When a detective asked Flagg if the victim deserved to be
shot, Flagg answered, “Of course he didn’t.” The State introduced
a post from Appellant’s Facebook page into evidence. The post
showed an album cover with Appellant’s picture on it and the
initials “L.G.”

     Surveillance footage near the scene of the crime showed
Appellant running after the shooting while wearing a blue shirt.
This security footage also showed Appellant tossing his hat into
the courtyard before leaving.

    A DNA analysis was conducted on the recovered firearm,
which produced a mixed profile of two donors. The only definitive
conclusion that the FDLE lab tests drew was that Flagg was not
one of the contributors.

      At the end of the trial, the jury found Appellant guilty of all
three counts, expressly finding that Appellant actually possessed
a firearm, discharged it, and caused great bodily harm in doing so.
The trial court imposed concurrent terms of imprisonment: life in
prison on count I, fifteen years on count II, and five years on count
III. This Court affirmed Appellant’s convictions and sentences per

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curiam on direct appeal without opinion. See Jones v. State, 296
So. 3d (Fla. 1st DCA 2020).

     The Appellant raised five claims below: three claims of
ineffective assistance of counsel, one claim of cumulative error, and
an argument that the trial court imposed an illegal life sentence
because it improperly reclassified his offense to a first-degree
felony punishable by life in prison.

      Appellant’s primary claim is that counsel was ineffective for
failing to object to alleged hearsay statements the State introduced
through law enforcement testimony. To prove ineffective
assistance of counsel, a defendant must allege (1) the specific acts
or omissions of counsel which fell below a standard of
reasonableness under prevailing professional norms and (2) that
the defendant’s case was prejudiced by these acts or omissions.
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 690–94 (1984). To prove
the first prong, “[t]he defendant must allege specific facts that,
when considering the totality of the circumstances, are not
conclusively rebutted by the record and that demonstrate a
deficiency on the part of counsel which is detrimental to the
defendant.” Blackwood v. State, 946 So. 2d 960, 968 (Fla. 2006)
(quoting LeCroy v. Dugger, 727 So. 2d 236, 239 (Fla. 1998)). The
prejudice prong requires that the defendant demonstrate a
reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, the result of
the proceeding would have been different. See Strickland, 466 U.S.
at 694. “A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to
undermine confidence in the outcome.” Id. The defendant must
show a likelihood of a different result which is substantial and not
just conceivable. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 112 (2011). If
the defendant fails to satisfy one prong of the Strickland analysis,
it is not necessary to consider the other prong. Waterhouse v. State,
792 So. 2d 1176, 1182 (Fla. 2001).

     Appellant contended that his trial counsel should have
objected to the State’s use of out-of-court statements that Flagg
made to law enforcement, including several full interviews.
Appellant argued that without the improper introduction of these
statements, the State could not have argued that an eyewitness
watched Appellant shoot the victim or have emphasized that Flagg
said that he did not think the victim deserved to be shot.

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     We hold that Appellant’s claim is meritless. Hearsay is a
statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying
at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the
matter asserted. “The hearsay rule does not prevent a witness from
testifying as to what he has heard; it is rather a restriction on the
proof of fact through extrajudicial statements.” Dorsey v. Reddy,
931 So. 2d 259, 266 (Fla. 5th DCA 2006) (quoting Breedlove v.
State, 413 So. 2d 1, 6 (Fla. 1982)). “If an out-of-court statement ‘is
offered for some purpose other than its truth, the statement is not
hearsay and is generally admissible if relevant to a material issue
in the case.’” Massey v. State, 109 So. 3d 324, 327 (Fla. 4th DCA
2013) (quoting Jackson v. State, 25 So. 3d 518, 530 (Fla. 2009)).
“The hearsay objection is unavailing when the inquiry is not
directed to the truth of the words spoken, but, rather, to whether
they were in fact spoken.” Breedlove, 413 So. 2d at 6.

     A party generally cannot call a witness solely for the purpose
of impeaching that witness with inconsistent prior statements.
Morton v. State, 689 So. 2d 259, 262 (Fla. 1997), receded from on
other grounds in Rodriguez v. State, 753 So. 2d 29, 47 (Fla. 2000).
But “[i]n a case where a witness gives both favorable and
unfavorable testimony, the party calling the witness should
usually be permitted to impeach the witness with a prior
inconsistent statement.” Morton, 689 So 2d at 264.

     Flagg’s trial testimony was not wholly inconsistent with his
prior statements, nor was it entirely adverse to the State’s case.
The State did not introduce Flagg as a witness solely to impeach
him. Thus, under Morton, the State had a right to impeach Flagg
with those prior inconsistent statements. Appellant’s trial counsel
had no legal grounds on which to object and was not ineffective for
failing to make a meritless objection.

     In his second ground, Appellant argued that trial counsel was
ineffective for failing to object to Detective Mullins testifying that
an undisclosed number of non-testifying witnesses and Flagg’s
own attorney told him that Flagg was not the shooter. Appellant
argued this was inadmissible hearsay and that counsel should
have objected to the statements. In Appellant’s third and final
ineffectiveness claim, he argued that counsel should have objected
to the State asking Flagg if he had ever seen Appellant carrying a

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concealed firearm in the past, as this question was designed to
elicit improper character evidence. He argued that it prejudiced
him because none of the eyewitnesses testified that they saw
Appellant shoot the victim, and thus there was a reasonable
probability that the trial’s outcome would have been different
without this line of questioning. *

     The postconviction court correctly denied these claims as
meritless. The State introduced evidence showing that Appellant
gave a post-Mirandized statement where he admitted to shooting
the victim. As a result, the alleged ineffectiveness of counsel did
not prejudice Appellant.

     Appellant’s claim of cumulative error fails because none of his
individual claims are meritorious. See Barnhill v. State, 971 So. 2d
106, 118 (Fla. 2007) (“Because all of the allegations of individual
legal error are without merit, a cumulative error argument based
upon these errors must also fail.”); Griffin v. State, 866 So. 2d 1, 22
(Fla. 2003) (holding that a cumulative error claim must fail where
individual claims of error alleged are either procedurally barred or
without merit).

     Appellant’s final claim—that he had a right to resentencing
because in the scoresheet and the judgment and sentence the trial
court improperly described attempted second-degree murder with
a firearm as a first-degree felony punishable by life in prison—is
also meritless. While Appellant was correct that his judgment and
sentence erroneously reflected his offense as a first-degree felony

    * In this line of questioning, the prosecutor asked Flagg if he

had been with Appellant at a club called Kava Lounge some
months prior to the shooting in the instant case, and Flagg said he
had. Flagg said Appellant had been patted down at that club. The
prosecutor asked if Flagg had seen Appellant take a gun out of his
waistband at that time, and Flagg said no. The prosecutor asked
again if Flagg had ever seen a gun on Appellant that night at Kava
Lounge, and Flagg said no. From a sidebar conference prior to this
line of questioning, it is clear that the prosecutor expected Flagg
to testify that Appellant had a gun at the Kava Lounge because of
a prior shooting there with which Appellant had been separately
charged.

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punishable by life in prison, rather than a first-degree felony,
Appellant’s scoresheet contained the correct values for offense
level and offense points. Moreover, the trial court sentenced
Appellant under section 775.087, Florida Statutes. Under section
775.087(1)(b), when a defendant uses a firearm in the commission
of a second-degree felony, the statute reclassifies the offense to a
first-degree felony. Subsection (2)(a)3 states that anyone convicted
of an enumerated felony (including attempted murder) who
discharges a firearm and causes great bodily harm as a result must
be sentenced to at least twenty-five years in prison and up to a life
sentence. Appellant shot the victim five times, and the victim was
in the hospital for months as a result of the injuries suffered from
the shooting. Thus, Appellant has no right to resentencing, and the
postconviction court correctly denied Appellant’s motion.

    AFFIRMED.

BILBREY and TANENBAUM, JJ., concur.

                  _____________________________

    Not final until disposition of any timely and
    authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
    9.331.
               _____________________________

Gregory D. Jones Jr., pro se, Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

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