Haliburton v. State

331 So.3d 640

Jerry Leon HALIBURTON, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC19-1858

Supreme Court of Florida.

June 17, 2021

Neal Dupree, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Brittney N. Lacy, Assistant Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, and Todd G. Scher, Special Assistant Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Southern Region, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for Appellant

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Rhonda Giger, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, Florida, for Appellee

PER CURIAM.

Jerry Leon Haliburton, a prisoner under sentence of death, appeals the trial court's order denying his motion for a determination of intellectual disability as a bar to execution, which was filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.203 and section 921.137, Florida Statutes (2019), and his amended successive motion for postconviction relief, which was filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons we explain, we affirm the denials of relief.

I. BACKGROUND

Haliburton was convicted of the 1981 first-degree murder of Donald Bohannon and is under sentence of death. We affirmed Haliburton's conviction and death sentence on direct appeal. Haliburton v. State , 561 So. 2d 248, 249-50 (Fla. 1990). We also affirmed the denial of his initial motion for postconviction relief and denied his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Haliburton v. Singletary , 691 So. 2d 466 (Fla. 1997), and affirmed the denial of his first successive motion for postconviction relief, Haliburton v. State , 935 So. 2d 1219 (Fla. 2006) (table).

In the wake of Atkins v. Virginia , 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), Haliburton filed a second successive motion for postconviction relief, under Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.851 and 3.203, seeking to vacate his death sentence on the ground that he was intellectually disabled. We affirmed the summary denial of that motion because Haliburton failed to demonstrate that his IQ was 70 or below and thus failed to establish that he is intellectually disabled under our interpretation of the law at that time. Haliburton v. State , 123 So. 3d 1146 (Fla. 2013), vacated , 574 U.S. 801, 135 S.Ct. 178, 190 L.Ed.2d 8 (2014), order vacated on reconsideration , 163 So. 3d 509 (Fla. 2015). Upon this Court's affirmance of the denial of his intellectual disability claim in 2013, Haliburton petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari. Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Hall v. Florida , 572 U.S. 701, 704, 134 S.Ct. 1986, 188 L.Ed.2d 1007 (2014), holding that Florida's "rigid rule" interpreting section 921.137(1), Florida Statutes,¹ as establishing a strict IQ test score cutoff of 70 or less in order to present additional evidence of intellectual disability "creates an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed, and thus is unconstitutional." The Supreme Court granted Haliburton's petition for certiorari and remanded to this Court for further consideration in light of Hall . Haliburton , 574 U.S. 801, 135 S.Ct. 178. On remand from the Supreme Court, this Court vacated its prior decision and remanded this case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on Haliburton's intellectual disability claim. Haliburton , 163 So. 3d 509.

Three witnesses testified at the evidentiary hearing; two were called by Haliburton—one of his brothers, John H. Haliburton, and Dr. Bruce Frumkin, a forensic and clinical psychologist—and one was called by the State—Dr. Michael Brannon, a forensic psychologist. John H.² testified that when they were young, Haliburton had trouble understanding things and doing chores, and although Haliburton completed the ninth grade, he needed help with his schoolwork. When Haliburton got older, John H. never knew him to live alone, drive a car, pay bills, or have a bank account.

Dr. Frumkin first evaluated Haliburton in 1992. At that time, he administered Haliburton the Wechsler Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) IQ test, on which Haliburton obtained a full-scale IQ score of 80. Dr. Frumkin became involved in the case again in 2010 when he was asked to evaluate Haliburton for intellectual disability. In 2010, Dr. Frumkin administered Haliburton the WAIS-IV, on which Haliburton obtained a full-scale IQ score of 74. According to Dr. Frumkin, based on the score of 74 and its 95 percent confidence interval, there is a 95 percent chance that Haliburton's actual IQ is between 70 and 79.³ Dr. Frumkin testified that the 70-79 range is consistent with all of the valid IQ test scores that Haliburton has ever achieved, which, in addition to the 80 and 74 obtained by Dr. Frumkin, include a second 80 (obtained by Dr. Fleming using the WAIS-R in 1992), a 79 (obtained by Dr. Eisenstein using the WAIS-III in 2000), and another 74 (obtained by Dr. Crown using the WAIS-IV in 2009).⁴ Dr. Frumkin now questions the 80 that Haliburton obtained on the WAIS-R in 1992. He now believes that score was overestimated by approximately four points, due to the Flynn effect.⁵

Dr. Frumkin testified that, in his opinion, Haliburton does have "significantly subaverage intelligence," based upon the fact that "he came across as someone with intellectual deficiencies," "[h]e was a very poor historian," and based on the score of 74 on the WAIS-IV in 2010. Additionally, Dr. Frumkin observed during his evaluation that Haliburton had very poor vocabulary, was very concrete in his thinking, had to have questions asked simply and repeated, was "off on timeframes," and that his reading, spelling, and arithmetic abilities varied from the fourth to fourteenth percentiles.

To assess Haliburton's adaptive functioning, Dr. Frumkin administered the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System-II (ABAS-II) to Haliburton's sister, Helen, and his brothers, John R. and John H. Dr. Frumkin determined the raw numbers produced by those assessments to be invalid for Helen and John H. but noted that there was general agreement among the siblings in terms of Haliburton's strongest and weakest areas.

Dr. Frumkin opined that Haliburton has two or more deficits in adaptive functioning and thus meets the adaptive deficits prong of the intellectual disability standard. Dr. Frumkin found that Haliburton had deficits in the conceptual domain based on his poor math skills, but he was vague in his testimony regarding in which other domain Haliburton had substantial deficits. In his report, Dr. Frumkin wrote, "He would have had at least major deficits in functional academic skills, using community resources, self-direction, and in communication."

Dr. Frumkin also testified that onset of Haliburton's condition occurred before the age of eighteen. This was based upon school records indicating that Haliburton had intellectual problems and difficulty functioning in school, was in special education classes, and a notation in the records that he "needs help in all salient areas." Based on his findings regarding Haliburton's subaverage intelligence, adaptive deficits, and the timeframe during which those problems manifested, Dr. Frumkin concluded that Haliburton is intellectually disabled.

Dr. Brannon evaluated Haliburton in June 2018. Prior to the evaluation, Dr. Brannon reviewed school records, prison records, and the scores on the WAIS tests previously administered to Haliburton. During the evaluation, Haliburton said that he completed the ninth grade in special education classes but had problems in school with hyperactivity, attentiveness, and following rules. He admitted to always being in some kind of trouble at school and bullying his peers. Haliburton discussed being sentenced to a "reform school" as a juvenile and serving three stints in prison as an adult, prior to the murder. He also had multiple arrests for driving offenses. Haliburton said he had never been married but reported being involved in a seventeen or eighteen-year relationship and living with his girlfriend at the time of his arrest for the murder. Haliburton reported using alcohol and a wide variety of drugs—heroin, amphetamines, barbiturates, cocaine, and marijuana—on a daily basis, beginning around age fourteen or fifteen. He provided Dr. Brannon with an accurate medical history and a rather elaborate personal history, which was not contradicted by any of the records. He reported being able to prepare basic meals but said that the women in his life had done most of the cooking and laundry for him. Haliburton reported reading every day in prison. He reads from the Koran, westerns, political books, black history, and books about the history of the United States and of Islam. He mentioned reading Liberty Defined by Ron Paul, [A ] People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, and But They Didn't Read Me My Rights! by Michael Cicchini, and he was able to convey to Dr. Brannon an understanding of what he had read in those books. He said he watches world news, C-SPAN, political shows, and follows the progress of bills.

Dr. Brannon observed that Haliburton's vocabulary was rich with words that would be expected from someone who was well within their upper high school years, which, Dr. Brannon said, is more consistent with the 79-80 IQ scores Haliburton achieved than the scores of 74. Haliburton could discuss concepts like "rights," "liberty," and "justice," and understand them in an abstract fashion. He had made multiple clear and grammatically correct written requests to prison authorities about the living conditions and his medical and dental needs, which Dr. Brannon reviewed.

Regrading Haliburton's IQ, Dr. Brannon acknowledged the Flynn effect and the practice effect⁶ but said there is no way of applying those theories in any sort of reasonable scientific way to Haliburton. Dr. Brannon concluded that Haliburton had neither significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning nor significant deficits in his...