Supreme Court of Florida

Denial of a motion for post conviction relief from a conviction for first-degree murder and a death sentence is affirmed over claims of error regarding: 1) ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to present expert testimony during a suppression hearing regarding the voluntariness of his confession; 2) whether officers took his confession in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment as applied in Missouri v. Seibert 542 U.S. 600 (2004); 3) whether the state knowingly allowed fundamentally untrue testimony by a detective to remain on the record; 4) ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to present an expert to support defendant's voluntary intoxication defense; 5) ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to introduce a co-defendant's statement at trial; 6) the use of inconsistent theories by the state; 7) ineffective assistance as to the penalty phase; and 8) ineffective assistance for failing to rebut the CCP aggravator and establish the substantially diminished capacity mitigator.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/05/2008
• Published 06/05/2008

Judges

• PER CURIAM.

Court

• Supreme Court of Florida

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Bill Jennings, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, and Peter J. Cannon, Assistant CCR Counsel, Middle Region, Tampa, FL, for Appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Carol M. Dittmar, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Appellee.