Jones v. Moore

794 So. 2d 579, 2001 WL 746764
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJuly 5, 2001
DocketSC00-660
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 794 So. 2d 579 (Jones v. Moore) 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
Jones v. Moore, 794 So. 2d 579, 2001 WL 746764 (Fla. 2001).

Opinion

794 So.2d 579 (2001)

Clarence JONES, Petitioner,
v.
Michael W. MOORE, etc., Respondent.

No. SC00-660.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 5, 2001.
Rehearing Denied September 5, 2001.

*581 Steven L. Seliger of Garcia & Seliger, Quincy, FL; Gregory C. Smith, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel—Northern Region, Tallahassee, FL; and Gail E. Anderson, Special Assistant CCC-NR, Greensboro, FL, for Petitioner.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Curtis M. French, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Respondent.

PER CURIAM.

Clarence Jones, a state prisoner under sentence of death, petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(9), Fla. Const. We deny the petition.

BACKGROUND

Jones was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1988 first-degree shooting murder of Tallahassee police officer Ernest Ponce de Leon. The facts are as follows:

*582 On July 7, 1988 Tallahassee police officers Greg Armstrong and Ernest Ponce de Leon responded to a call regarding a car parked behind a laundromat. They found Henry Goins, Clarence Jones, and Irvin Griffin, escapees from a Maryland prison, and Beverly Harris, a woman traveling with the trio, seated in the car. While Armstrong checked on the driver's identification and Ponce de Leon tried to run a computer check on the car's license tag, one of the car's passengers fired two shots at Ponce de Leon. Armstrong then engaged the car's occupants in a gun battle. Jones picked up Ponce de Leon's service weapon, and he and Griffin, both of whom were wounded, fled the scene on foot. They broke into a nearby home, where police captured them a short time later. Officer Ponce de Leon was dead at the scene from two gunshot wounds to the chest.
The state indicted Goins, Jones, and Griffin for, among other things, first-degree murder. Goins negotiated a guilty plea to second-degree murder in exchange for a thirty-year prison sentence, and the state conducted a joint trial of Jones and Griffin. Harris testified at trial for the state and identified Jones as the person who shot Ponce de Leon. Jones testified on his own behalf that an unknown drug dealer who met them at the laundromat shot the officer. The jury convicted both Jones and Griffin as charged. At separate penalty proceedings Griffin received a sentence of life imprisonment, while the court agreed with the jury's eleven-to-one recommendation and sentenced Jones to death.

Jones v. State, 580 So.2d 143, 144-45 (Fla. 1991) (footnotes omitted), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 878, 112 S.Ct. 221, 116 L.Ed.2d 179 (1991) (Jones I).

Jones's trial counsel and appellate counsel were the same individual, Clifford L. Davis.[1] This Court affirmed the conviction and sentence on direct appeal.[2]See id. Jones subsequently filed a motion for postconviction relief pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 for postconviction *583 relief. The trial judge[3] denied the motion. We affirmed. See Jones v. State, 732 So.2d 313 (Fla.1999) (Jones II).[4] Jones now files this habeas corpus petition raising seven issues challenging the legality of his conviction and death sentence.[5] We find several issues to be procedurally barred without the need of elaboration.[6] We find the remaining issues either procedurally barred or meritless.

PRISON ESCAPE AND PHOTOGRAPH EVIDENCE

Our habeas corpus standard of review for ineffective assistance of appellate counsel mirrors the Strickland[7] standard for trial counsel ineffectiveness. See Rutherford v. Moore, 774 So.2d 637, 643 (Fla.2000). We said in Rutherford:

[T]his Court's ability to grant habeas relief on the basis of appellate counsel's ineffectiveness is limited to those situations where the petitioner establishes first, that appellate counsel's performance was deficient because "the alleged omissions are of such magnitude as to constitute a serious error or substantial deficiency falling measurably outside the range of professionally acceptable performance" and second, that the petitioner was prejudiced because appellate counsel's deficiency "compromised the appellate process to such a degree as to undermine confidence in the correctness of the result."

Id. at 643 (quoting Thompson v. State, 759 So.2d 650, 660 (Fla.2000)).

With regard to evidentiary objections which trial counsel made during the trial and which appellate counsel did not raise on direct appeal, this Court evaluates the prejudice or second prong of the Strickland test first. In doing so, we begin our review of the prejudice prong by examining the specific objection made by trial counsel for harmful error. A successful petition must demonstrate that the erroneous ruling prejudiced the petitioner. If we conclude that the trial court's ruling was not erroneous, then it naturally follows that habeas petitioner was not prejudiced *584 on account of appellate counsel's failure to raise that issue. If we do conclude that the trial court's evidentiary ruling was erroneous, we then consider whether such error is harmful error. If that error was harmless, the petitioner likewise would not have been prejudiced.

Jones argues that appellate counsel should have pursued on direct appeal objections to the admission of details of his prison escape in Maryland. The gravamen of Jones's prison escape contention is that appellate counsel erred in not raising objections made by trial counsel to those portions of Antonie Garrett's testimony regarding the Maryland prison escape. Garrett, a Maryland correctional officer, testified that while he was working yard duty at the Maryland House of Corrections on June 25, 1988, inmate Griffin threatened Garrett with a knife. His testimony revealed that Griffin prevented him from moving or sounding an alarm while inmate Goins cut a hole in the prison fence. Garrett watched as a total of five inmates went through the hole Goins cut in the fence.[8] Trial counsel objected to this testimony and argued that it was not relevant, and even if relevant, the prejudicial effect far outweighed its probative value.

By the time Garrett testified, other witnesses had testified without objection that Jones had escaped from prison. Officer Berkley Clayton testified that he had received flyers concerning a Maryland prison escape. Officer Clayton testified that from these flyers he identified Jones, Griffin, and Goins as three individuals who had escaped from the Maryland prison. Traveling companion Harris testified that Jones, Griffin, and Goins told her that the trio had escaped from prison and that they were not going to go back. Thus, at the time Garrett testified, the jury had been exposed to Jones's prison escape.[9]

On direct appeal, objections under section 90.403, Florida Statutes (2000), are reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard. See Williamson v. State, 681 So.2d 688, 696 (Fla.1996). In Williamson, we said:

Almost all evidence introduced during a criminal trial prosecution is prejudicial to a defendant. In reviewing testimony about a collateral crime that is admitted over an objection based upon section 90.403, a trial judge must balance the import of the evidence with respect to the case of the party offering it against the danger of unfair prejudice.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
794 So. 2d 579, 2001 WL 746764, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jones-v-moore-fla-2001.