Darryl Brian Barwick v. State of Florida

Supreme Court of Florida·Decided April 28, 2023·No. SC2023-0531·Published

Opinion

Supreme Court of Florida

No. SC2023-0531

DARRYL B. BARWICK,

Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

April 28, 2023

PER CURIAM.

Darryl B. Barwick, a prisoner under sentence of death for whom a warrant has been signed and an execution set for May 3, 2023, appeals the circuit court’s orders summarily denying his second successive motion for postconviction relief, which was filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851; denying his motion for a stay of execution; and sustaining objections to his public records requests, which were made under rule 3.852. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

On March 31, 1986, after observing the victim sunbathing at her Panama City apartment complex, Barwick returned to his home to retrieve a knife and walked back to the apartment complex. He followed the victim into her apartment, stabbed her thirty-seven times, wrapped her in a comforter, and left her body in the bathroom for her sister to find when she returned to their shared apartment that evening. Bloody fingerprints were found on the victim’s purse and wallet, and her bathing suit had been displaced. Semen was found on the comforter wrapped around her body, and it was determined that Barwick was included within the two percent of the population who could have left the stain. Barwick was arrested and confessed to law enforcement and multiple family members. Barwick v. State, 660 So. 2d 685, 688-89 (Fla. 1995).

Barwick was indicted on charges of first-degree murder, armed burglary, attempted sexual battery, and armed robbery. He was initially found guilty as charged and subsequently sentenced to death for the murder in 1987, but the convictions and sentences

were vacated due to a Neil violation during jury selection.1 Id. at 689. At his retrial in 1992, the jury again found Barwick guilty as charged and unanimously recommended a sentence of death. The trial court found that the following aggravators had been established beyond a reasonable doubt: (1) previous convictions for the violent felonies of sexual battery with force likely to cause death or great bodily harm and burglary of a dwelling with an assault; (2) the murder was committed during an attempted sexual battery; (3) the murder was committed to avoid arrest; (4) the murder was committed for pecuniary gain; (5) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel; and (6) the murder was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral justification. The trial court found that each potential mitigator proposed by Barwick was either not established by the

1. Barwick had objected to the State’s use of peremptory challenges to excuse three black jurors, and the trial court incorrectly believed that Barwick had no standing to make an objection under State v. Neil, 457 So. 2d 481 (Fla. 1984)—which prohibits the use of peremptory challenges on prospective jurors based solely on their race—due to the fact that both he and the victim were white. See Barwick v. State, 547 So. 2d 612, 612 (Fla. 1989).

evidence or was not a significant mitigating circumstance. The trial court followed the jury’s recommendation of a sentence of death for the murder and also sentenced Barwick to life for armed burglary with a battery, thirty years for attempted sexual battery, and life for armed robbery. Id. at 689-90.

On appeal after retrial, this Court concluded that although the trial court erred in applying the cold, calculated, and premeditated aggravator, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and Barwick’s convictions and sentences were affirmed. Id. at 696-97. The convictions and sentences became final when the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in 1996. Barwick v. Florida, 516 U.S. 1097 (1996).

In the decades since, Barwick has unsuccessfully challenged his convictions and sentences in state and federal court. See Barwick v. State, 88 So. 3d 85 (Fla. 2011) (affirming the denial of Barwick’s initial motion for postconviction relief and denying his state habeas petition); Barwick v. Crews, 5:12cv00159-RH, 2014 WL 1057088 (N.D. Fla. Mar. 19, 2014) (denying Barwick’s federal habeas petition); Barwick v. Sec’y, Fla. Dept. of Corr., 794 F.3d 1239 (11th Cir. 2015) (affirming the denial of Barwick’s federal habeas

petition); Barwick v. State, 237 So. 3d 927 (Fla. 2018) (affirming the denial of Barwick’s first successive motion for postconviction relief).

Governor Ron DeSantis signed Barwick’s death warrant on April 3, 2023. Barwick then filed a second successive motion for postconviction relief under rule 3.851, raising three claims: (1) the scheduling of Barwick’s execution and warrant litigation violates his right to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and the corresponding provisions of the Florida Constitution and deprives him of the effective assistance of postconviction counsel; (2) newly discovered evidence shows that the death penalty is a categorically unconstitutional punishment for individuals who were under age twenty-one when they committed their capital offenses; and (3) because of his severe neuropsychological disorder, lifelong cognitive impairments, and low mental age, executing Barwick would violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The circuit court summarily denied all three claims, as well as Barwick’s motion for a stay and certain requests for public records. This appeal followed.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Due Process, Effective Assistance of Postconviction Counsel, Stay of Execution, and Public Records

In his first issue on appeal, Barwick claims primarily that the compressed warrant litigation schedule resulted in the denial of his rights to due process and the effective assistance of postconviction counsel. He addresses these claims as a single issue, asserting that due process depends on the effective assistance of counsel, and that the accelerated warrant schedule and other attendant circumstances made it impossible for Barwick to be provided with effective assistance of postconviction counsel.

The circuit court summarily denied this consolidated claim, finding that Barwick was not denied due process because he did not allege that he was ever denied notice or an opportunity to be heard and that he was not denied effective assistance of postconviction counsel because he has no right to effective assistance of postconviction counsel. We agree that summary denial of this claim was proper.

Barwick has made it abundantly clear in his pleadings filed in both the circuit court and this Court that the post-warrant litigation

in this case has been very arduous for his counsel due to certain circumstances that happened to coincide with the beginning of the warrant period, such as the occurrence of Holy Week, Passover, and Ramadan; co-counsel being ill; and the presence of another inmate on Death Watch. 2 Indeed, post-warrant litigation is arduous, even without such circumstances. Yet none of the obstacles identified by Barwick resulted in a denial of due process.

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV. The Florida Constitution similarly provides that “[n]o person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” Art. I, § 9, Fla. Const. “Due process requires that a defendant be given notice and an opportunity to be heard on a matter before it is decided.” Asay v. State, 210 So. 3d 1, 27 (Fla. 2016) (citing Huff v. State, 622 So. 2d 982, 982 (Fla. 1993)). But as the circuit court recognized in summarily denying this claim,

2. “Death Watch” is a designated area of Florida State Prison where death row inmates under an active death warrant are housed.

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