Buenoano v. State

708 So. 2d 941, 1998 WL 133991
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedMarch 26, 1998
Docket92522
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 708 So. 2d 941 (Buenoano v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Buenoano v. State, 708 So. 2d 941, 1998 WL 133991 (Fla. 1998).

Opinion

708 So.2d 941 (1998)

Judy A. BUENOANO, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 92522.

Supreme Court of Florida.

March 26, 1998.

*943 Gregory C. Smith, Capital Collateral Counsel, and Sylvia W. Smith and Robert Friedman, Assistant Capital Collateral Counsel, Office of the Capital Collateral Counsel, Northern Region, Tallahassee, for Appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Candance M. Sabella and Katherine V. Blanco, Assistant Attorneys General, Tampa, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Judy A. Buenoano, a prisoner under sentence of death and a third death warrant, appeals an order denying her motion for postconviction relief and her request for a stay of execution. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.

This is Buenoano's third round of postconviction motions in state court. See Buenoano v. State, 559 So.2d 1116 (Fla.1990) (affirming trial court's summary denial of first rule 3.850 motion and denying petition for writ of habeas corpus after death warrant signed); Buenoano v. State, 565 So.2d 309 (Fla.1990)(affirming denial of second rule 3.850 motion after death warrant signed). Buenoano also has sought and ultimately was denied relief in federal court. See Buenoano v. Singletary, 74 F.3d 1078 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 520, 136 L.Ed.2d 408 (1996).

In order to put Buenoano's various claims in perspective, we find it necessary to summarize the evidence presented at trial and explain much of the procedural background leading up to the rule 3.850 motion at issue here.

FACTS

Buenoano is facing execution for the first-degree murder of her husband, James Goodyear. According to testimony presented during the Orange County trial, Goodyear died in 1971, as a result of chronic arsenic poisoning. The cause of death was discovered in 1984, after Goodyear's body was exhumed. Two of Buenoano's acquaintances testified that Buenoano had discussed with them killing a person by arsenic poisoning. One of the those acquaintances and another witness testified that Buenoano admitted killing Goodyear.

Additionally, during the guilt phase of the trial the State introduced Williams[1] rule evidence regarding the death of Bobby Joe Morris and the poisoning of John Gentry. According to testimony at trial, Morris, with whom Buenoano lived after Goodyear's death, also died of acute arsenic poisoning. Gentry, with whom Buenoano lived after Morris's death, testified that he suspected Buenoano was trying to poison him with vitamin capsules, known as Vicon C, which Buenoano was giving him to combat a cold. *944 Gentry ultimately turned several of the capsules over to the police.

After Gentry testified in the guilt phase of the trial, a stipulation reached by the State and defense counsel was read to the jury. The stipulation traced the path of the Vicon C capsules from the police to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) crime laboratory in Washington, D.C., where the capsules were examined by Special Agent Roger Martz, a lab chemist. As to Martz's examination of the capsules, the jury was told that Martz determined the capsules were Vicon C capsules and that they contained paraformaldehyde, a Class III poison. After the stipulation was read to the jury, Dr. Thomas Hegert testified that the symptoms displayed by Gentry, as indicated in Gentry's medical records, could be consistent with being caused by paraformaldehyde. Buenoano later testified, during her case in chief, that she was familiar with paraformaldehyde and was aware that it would take a lot more than one capsule containing 1½ grams of the substance to cause death. On cross-examination, when asked if she gave John Gentry paraformaldehyde, Buenoano responded, "I did not. If I did, it was an accident." Evidence also was presented during the guilt phase of the trial that Buenoano either collected benefits from or was the beneficiary of various life insurance policies on the three men with whom she had lived.

Much of Buenoano's motion for postconviction relief centers around newly obtained evidence concerning Special Agent Roger Martz. Although Martz's stipulated conclusions were introduced in the Orange County trial where Buenoano was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, Martz did not testify before that jury. Martz testified in the prior Escambia County trial for the attempted first-degree murder of John Gentry by bombing. That testimony formed the basis for the stipulation of Martz's conclusions concerning the contents of the Vicon C capsules which was read to the Orange County jury during the guilt phase of the trial.

Evidence of Buenoano's Escambia County attempted murder conviction was not introduced during the guilt phase of the Orange County first-degree murder trial. Guilt phase evidence concerning Gentry was limited to Williams rule evidence about Buenoano's alleged attempts to poison him. Evidence of Buenoano's Escambia County attempted first-degree murder conviction, together with evidence of her Santa Rosa County conviction for the first-degree drowning murder of her son, was introduced during the sentencing phase to support the prior violent felony aggravator.

The jury found Buenoano guilty of first-degree murder and by a vote of ten to two recommended imposition of the death penalty. The trial court followed the jury's recommendation, finding no mitigating factors and four aggravating factors: (1) Buenoano had been convicted previously of a capital felony or a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person; (2) the murder was committed for pecuniary gain; (3) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel; and (4) the murder was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner. This Court upheld Buenoano's conviction and sentence. See Buenoano v. State, 527 So.2d 194 (Fla.1988).

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In January 1997, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel for the Northern Region (CCRC), on behalf of Buenoano, sent letters to a number of agencies requesting public records pursuant to chapter 119, Florida Statutes (1997). Three agencies, including the State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, refused to provide the documents, maintaining that Buenoano had not complied with Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.852. Buenoano's petitions seeking to require the three agencies to comply with her requests were treated as motions to compel under rule 3.852 and transferred to the trial court that would hear her rule 3.850 motion. After the Governor signed a third death warrant setting execution for March 30, 1998, the trial court denied the motions to compel.

The State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit subsequently filed a "Request for In Camera Inspection and Judicial Determination of Prosecutorial Obligation." The trial court granted the motion, and the State Attorney *945 submitted a set of documents that had not been disclosed to Buenoano. The documents had been sent to the State Attorney by the United States Department of Justice in December 1997, with a transmittal letter indicating that the documents should only be disclosed pursuant to a protective order and that the documents should be returned when they were no longer needed. The documents pertained to an investigation of the FBI Crime Laboratory conducted by the United States Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General.

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Bluebook (online)
708 So. 2d 941, 1998 WL 133991, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/buenoano-v-state-fla-1998.