Wall v. State

326 So.3d 1065

Craig Alan WALL, Sr., Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. SC19-1727

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 20, 2021

Eric Pinkard, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Adrienne Joy Shepherd, Ali A. Shakoor, and Lisa Marie Bort, Assistant Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, Middle Region, Temple Terrace, Florida; and Craig Alan Wall, Sr., pro se, Raiford, Florida, for Appellant

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Marilyn Muir Beccue, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, Florida, for Appellee

PER CURIAM.

Capital Collateral Regional Counsel (CCRC) appeals the circuit court's order granting Wall's motion to dismiss postconviction counsel and proceedings, filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons below, we affirm the circuit court's order granting Wall's waiver.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Wall was sentenced to death for the 2010 murders of his infant son, C.J., and C.J.’s mother, Laura Taft. See Wall v. State , 238 So. 3d 127 (Fla. 2018). In 2015, Wall pleaded no contest to C.J.’s murder and guilty to Laura's murder. Wall conducted his own penalty phase and Spencer hearing with standby counsel present.¹ Wall was sentenced to death for both murders, and this Court affirmed his convictions and sentences. See 238 So. 3d at 146.

In March 2018, CCRC was appointed to represent Wall in postconviction proceedings. In July 2019, Wall filed a pro se motion to monitor and remove CCRC counsel Shepherd and, if denied, to waive postconviction counsel and proceedings. At a status hearing in August 2019, CCRC counsel Shepherd asked the postconviction court to appoint two experts to evaluate Wall's competency before holding a hearing on the motion. The court orally denied counsel's request and set a hearing on Wall's motion.

CCRC counsel then filed a written motion to determine Wall's competency, seeking the appointment of two experts to conduct an evaluation. The court denied the motion and conducted the hearing on Wall's motion on August 23, 2019.

At the motion hearing, the postconviction court initially addressed the first part of Wall's motion, which sought a Nelson hearing for the purpose of removing and replacing CCRC counsel Shepherd.² However, the court denied Wall's request and instead conducted a Durocher /Faretta colloquy for the purpose of ruling on Wall's motion to waive postconviction counsel and proceedings.³

The court ultimately found that Wall's waiver of postconviction counsel and proceedings was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, and it orally accepted Wall's waiver. The court issued a written order to that effect on September 18, 2019. CCRC now appeals the circuit court's order.

ANALYSIS

CCRC argues that the circuit court abused its discretion by refusing to appoint experts to reevaluate Wall for competency before ruling on Wall's waiver, and that the court abused its discretion by finding that Wall was competent to waive postconviction counsel and proceedings. CCRC also argues that Wall's waiver was not knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. However, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion with respect to Wall's competency and that Wall's waiver was knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily made.

I. Competency

CCRC asserts that Wall's disruptive behavior, combined with an expert's conclusion that severe mental illness renders Wall incompetent, established a basis for ordering a new competency evaluation. The State correctly argues that the circuit court was not obligated to reevaluate Wall's competency. We begin by reviewing relevant background and then turn to our analysis.

During the pretrial phase, in May 2013, Dr. Jill Poorman evaluated Wall and deemed him incompetent to proceed. Wall , 238 So. 3d at 141. However, in December 2013, Dr. Poorman reevaluated Wall and concluded that he was competent to proceed. Id. The trial court accepted Dr. Poorman's conclusion. Id. Dr. Poorman also conducted subsequent evaluations of Wall—including an evaluation prior to Wall's pleas in 2015—each resulting in a conclusion that Wall was competent. Id. On direct appeal, this Court rejected Wall's claim that he was not competent to plead. Id. at 141-42.

In 2019, in response to Wall's motion to waive postconviction counsel and proceedings, CCRC requested that the postconviction court appoint experts to evaluate Wall's competency. At an August 2, 2019, status hearing, CCRC stated that it had retained a mental health expert who reviewed Wall's records and determined that severe mental illness rendered Wall incompetent. CCRC urged the court to have Wall evaluated for competency before the waiver hearing. However, the judge concluded that there was no basis for a preliminary competency evaluation and that he would determine at the waiver hearing whether to order a competency evaluation. In an exchange with CCRC counsel Shepherd at the status hearing, Judge Federico stated:

THE COURT: All right. Well, what you're telling me just reinforces what I've seen over the past nine years. If he is not happy with his lawyers or that the interaction with his lawyers, with you, is the same that it's been over the course of the nine years relative to representation, interaction without counsel, no matter how good his lawyers are or how experienced they are, it's never enough or never good enough in that situation.

And so this is more of the same from what I can tell regarding that. Erratic behavior because he is angry or upset at the lawyers or people in general does not necessarily lead to competency issues with Mr. Wall. He's a special case, as you've found out over the course of your representation.

And I also agree with what the AG said that he's not likely to assist in the evaluation. He wants to get here and vent his spleen and tell us what he wants to tell us. And I totally agree with what she said that he's not gonna cooperate until he actually has the opportunity to come and do that. If I think things have changed relative to his and [my] interaction, then I'll be able to figure that out fairly quickly, I believe.

Subsequently, at the waiver hearing on August 23, 2019, the postconviction court concluded that no competency evaluation was required. The exchange between the court and CCRC, with interjections from Wall, reads in relevant part:

MS. SHEPHERD [CCRC]: I just—I wanted to reiterate our position that if Mr. Wall—you decide he is making the decision to waive today, before you render a final decision allowing him to do that, that he be evaluated by two experts for competency.

THE COURT: It says if there's something about this hearing that suggests it's necessary to do that.

THE DEFENDANT: It says reasonable grounds.

MS. SHEPHERD [CCRC]: Yes, your Honor. You are correct. It is—the rule says if there's—

THE COURT: Nothing has changed over eight—

THE DEFENDANT: No.

THE COURT: —I would say eight years that Mr. Wall has been here. The same affect, the same interaction, the same level of intelligence, the same ability to respond, to talk, to communicate. While he can be vociferous in the way he speaks and a little profane—

THE DEFENDANT: That was a nice way to say it.

THE COURT: Thank you. There is nothing that he is acting like today that isn't something that I've seen over the years throughout the—

THE DEFENDANT: It's based on frustration, your Honor.

THE COURT: Throughout the—I understand. Throughout the—but, again, that shows that he's competent—

MS. SHEPHERD [CCRC]: Your Honor—

THE COURT: —because he understands what's going on. He's oriented. He knows what the process is. He's done the research. He's thought about it. He's come here with a plan. He's got an idea. I mean, all of those things are the same that I've seen throughout. He was able to waive—not only able to plead guilty, but he was able to waive having counsel to represent him and represent him in the penalty phase, which is even a higher standard than competence to go to trial if you have to represent yourself, and he was found to be competent. The Florida Supreme Court upheld all those findings.

So unless there is something different—and, frankly, I haven't seen anything different. This is more the same interaction that we've had over the last eight years throughout this entire process. There is nothing here to suggest to me that I need to have him evaluated by experts. MS. SHEPHERD [CCRC]: Your Honor, I would argue that simply because the fact that this is the same interaction that you've been having since the beginning would indicate that he is incompetent. It's our position he was never competent to go pro se and, likely, never competent to proceed. And he's manifestly shown that he has an inability to conduct himself according to courtroom etiquette, the profanity, interrupting, ranting about irrelevant—

THE DEFENDANT: I have a disregard for authority. That's all that amounts to.

MS. SHEPHERD [CCRC]: He's indicating—

THE DEFENDANT: That's not—that's not—

THE COURT: Hold on, Mr. Wall.

MS. SHEPHERD [CCRC]: Further, we do have a mental health expert that has opined preliminarily that he may have a mental illness that is preventing him from being competent. And under Dusky that can qualify. Your Honor, there is no harm to any of the parties—

THE DEFENDANT: Yeah, because you know I'm not going to cooperate. That's why you're trying to force it, because you know and he knows I'm not gonna do it.

THE COURT: Mr. Wall, please.

MS. SHEPHERD [CCRC]: There is no harm or prejudice to any of the parties having him evaluated just to ensure—this man is making the decision to waive his ability to challenge his death sentences. This is the ultimate decision anyone can make in a court of law. He deserves to be competent during that process.

THE DEFENDANT: I deserve counsel.

THE COURT: We agree he deserves—your argument is with the Supreme Court. They've reviewed everything that happened to this point. They said there was no error in any of those prior hearings and nothing

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