Sanchez-Torres v. State

322 So.3d 15

Hector SANCHEZ-TORRES, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Hector Sanchez-Torres, Petitioner,

v.Mark S. Inch, etc., Respondent.

No. SC19-211

No. SC19-836

Supreme Court of Florida.

March 12, 2020

Robert S. Friedman, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Robert R. Berry and Karin L. Moore, Assistant Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Northern Region, Tallahassee, Florida, for Appellant/Petitioner

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Michael T. Kennett, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, for Appellee/Respondent

PER CURIAM.

Hector G. Sanchez-Torres challenges an order denying in part and dismissing in part his third amended motion to vacate judgments of conviction and sentence of death, filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. He also petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), (9), Fla. Const. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the denial of postconviction relief, and we deny Sanchez-Torres's petition for habeas relief.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On direct appeal, we summarized the facts of the investigation that led to Sanchez-Torres's armed robbery and first-degree murder charges:

On the evening of September 9, 2008, Erick Joel Colon had been at a friend's house playing board games and left at 11 p.m. to walk home. He had his cell phone with him at the time, as well as a wallet with cash in it.

Colon's body was discovered lying on the sidewalk close to his home in the early morning hours of September 10, at 1:30 a.m. The area was very dark. When Colon's body was discovered, his wallet and cell phone were missing.

Colon had been shot once in the head, but had no other injuries. The medical examiner testified that the characteristics of the gunshot wound indicated that the muzzle of the gun was in direct contact with, and pressed hard against, the skin. The entrance wound was just below the left eye, and the exit wound was on the right back side of the head.

On September 30, 2008, Colon's mother testified that she received a phone call from her son's number. When she answered, a young Hispanic woman was on the other end. Colon's mother began crying and told the caller that the cell phone belonged to her murdered son. The caller hung up.

Sanchez-Torres's younger sister, who was fifteen years old at the time of the crime, testified during the penalty phase that she had discovered the cell phone and recognized that it was not one of her brother's cell phones. She found a contact listing for "mom" and called it. A woman answered. She was crying and explained that the cell phone belonged to her murdered son. Sanchez-Torres's sister then hung up and called her mother, who told her to turn off the phone and wait for her to come home. Sanchez-Torres's sister also called Markeil Thomas, the codefendant in this case and Sanchez-Torres's good friend and roommate, who told her to turn off the phone and pull out the battery, which she did. She gave the phone to Thomas, and her mother got it from him.

Detective Sharman with the Clay County Sheriff's Office spoke with Sanchez-Torres's mother, Maria Torres, on October 1, 2008. Torres stated that she had found the phone and that her daughter had used the phone to call someone who said the phone belonged to her son. Torres stated that she had taken the phone from her daughter and had thrown it in the trash. At some point later, Torres told law enforcement that she had given the cell phone to someone who had destroyed it. The Clay County Sheriff's Office was then able to locate pieces of the phone.

On October 2, Detective Sharman visited Sanchez-Torres in the Duval County Jail to question him about the phone. Sanchez-Torres stated that Thomas had bought the phone from an acquaintance known as "D." When informed that the phone belonged to a murder victim, Sanchez-Torres denied having anything to do with the murder. The Clay County Sheriff's Office was able to identify and locate "D," who denied ever selling or giving Sanchez-Torres or Thomas a phone.

Detective West, also with the Clay County Sheriff's Office, testified that he spoke with Torres on March 5, 2009, when he interviewed her at her home. When he met with her, he informed her that he had drafted an arrest warrant for her for tampering with the cell phone and showed her an unsigned arrest warrant. Torres testified that the next day, she told Sanchez-Torres about what happened, and he told her to contact the detectives and tell them to come see him.

After Detective West received a phone call from Torres, in which she stated that Sanchez-Torres wanted to speak to him, Detective West proceeded to the Duval County Jail to interview Sanchez-Torres. During the initial part of the interview, Sanchez-Torres stated that Thomas had shot the victim and drew a diagram of the scene and the body to describe what happened. Detective West left the room, and Sanchez-Torres wrote out a three-page handwritten statement, in which he stated that he, and not Thomas, had shot the victim. Detective West returned to the room and took Sanchez-Torres to a different location in order to conduct a videotaped interview. Sanchez-Torres then told Detective West again that Thomas was the shooter.

Sanchez-Torres v. State , 130 So. 3d 661, 664-65 (Fla. 2013).

Sanchez-Torres pled guilty to the armed robbery and first-degree murder of Erick Colon and waived his right to a penalty phase jury. Id. at 664. The trial court found the existence of two aggravating factors: "(1) prior violent felony (great weight); and (2) commission during the course of a robbery (merged with pecuniary gain) (great weight)." Id. The prior violent felony aggravator was based on Sanchez-Torres being convicted of another murder that occurred less than two months before he killed Mr. Colon. Id. at 675. The trial court also found the existence of twenty-two nonstatutory mitigating circumstances and assigned "slight," "little," or "some" weight to each. Id. at 667-68. The court determined that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances and sentenced Sanchez-Torres to death. Id. at 668.

On direct appeal, we affirmed the convictions and death sentence, holding that Sanchez-Torres's guilty plea was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, and that his death sentence was proportional. Id. at 673, 676. Sanchez-Torres filed a motion to vacate his judgments of conviction and sentence.¹ Following an evidentiary hearing on Sanchez-Torres's third amended motion, the postconviction court entered an order denying some of his claims and dismissing the others.²

Sanchez-Torres now argues that the court erred in denying three of his ineffective assistance of counsel claims—that defense counsel: (1) misadvised him to enter a guilty plea; (2) misadvised him to waive his right to a penalty phase jury, and (3) failed to file a motion to suppress his confession. Sanchez-Torres also petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus, asserting that his charging document was constitutionally defective and that his appellate counsel failed to raise certain claims on direct appeal. We address each of these arguments in turn.

ANALYSIS

I. Sanchez-Torres's Denied Postconviction Claims

A. Trial counsel's advice to plead guilty and waive a penalty phase jury

Sanchez-Torres argues that the postconviction court erred in denying his claim that trial counsel misadvised him to plead guilty against his best interests to avoid going to a trial they were not prepared for. Sanchez-Torres also argues that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by advising him to waive his right to a penalty phase jury, a decision he insists had no possible benefit to him.

To the extent Sanchez-Torres is arguing that his plea was not knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, this claim is procedurally barred because the issue was already addressed on direct appeal. See Freeman v. State , 761 So. 2d 1055, 1067 (Fla. 2000) ("This issue was raised on direct appeal and cannot be relitigated under the guise of ineffective assistance of counsel."). However, in the direct appeal opinion, we refused to address Sanchez-Torres's assertions that he was misinformed about the consequences of a guilty plea, holding that such claims should be addressed in postconviction proceedings, where an evidentiary hearing could be held on the allegations. Sanchez-Torres , 130 So. 3d at 671, 673. We address now the claim that trial counsel misadvised Sanchez-Torres due to lack of preparation.

To establish deficient performance such as to demonstrate ineffective assistance of counsel, "[t]he defendant must specifically identify acts or omissions of counsel that were manifestly outside the wide range of reasonably competent performance under prevailing professional norms." Long v. State , 183 So. 3d 342, 345 (Fla. 2016). The defendant has the burden to overcome "a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance." Strickland v. Washington , 466 U.S. 668, 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). When counsel offers a strategic explanation for the challenged conduct, "this Court will not second-guess counsel's strategic decisions on collateral attack." Brown v. State , 846 So. 2d 1114, 1125 (Fla. 2003).

The defendant must also establish prejudice, which, in the plea context, means that "a defendant must demonstrate ‘a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors, the defendant would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.’ " Long , 183 So. 3d at 345 (quoting Grosvenor v. State , 874 So. 2d 1176, 1181 (Fla. 2004) ). Because both deficient performance and prejudice present mixed questions of law and fact, "this Court employs a mixed standard of review, deferring to the circuit court's factual findings that are supported by competent, substantial evidence, but reviewing the circuit court's legal conclusions de novo." Johnston v. State , 63 So. 3d 730, 737 (Fla. 2011)...