Paul Beasley Johnson v. State of Florida

205 So. 3d 1285, 41 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 579, 2016 Fla. LEXIS 2597
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedDecember 1, 2016
DocketSC14-1175
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 205 So. 3d 1285 (Paul Beasley Johnson v. State of Florida) 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
Paul Beasley Johnson v. State of Florida, 205 So. 3d 1285, 41 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 579, 2016 Fla. LEXIS 2597 (Fla. 2016).

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

This case is before the Court on appeal from sentences of death. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. Because the jury that recommended Johnson’s death sentences did not find the facts necessary to sentence him to death, we vacate Johnson’s death sentences and remand this case to the circuit court for a new penalty proceeding. See Hurst v. Florida, — U.S. —, 136 S.Ct. 616, 624, 193 L.Ed.2d 504 (2016); Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 609, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002); Hurst v. State, 202 So.3d 40 (Fla.2016).

FACTS

In 1981, Paul Beasley Johnson was convicted of, among other crimes, three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of William Evans, Daryl Ray Beasley, Jr., and T.A. Burnham. Johnson v. State, 438 So.2d 774, 775-76 (Fla.1983). We affirmed Johnson’s convictions and death sentences on direct appeal. Id, at 780. After the Governor signed a death warrant for Johnson, we granted Johnson’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, holding that appel[1287]*1287late counsel in Johnson’s direct appeal was ineffective for failing to raise a claim related to the sequestration of the jurors. Johnson v. Wainwright, 498 So.2d 938, 939 (Fla.1986).

Following a 1987 mistrial, Johnson was retried and was again convicted and sentenced to death. Johnson v. State, 608 So.2d 4, 8 (Fla.1992).

The following evidence was presented at the new trial. The evening of January 8, 1981 Johnson and his wife visited their friends Shayne and Ricky Carter. During the evening they all took injections of crystal methedrine and smoked marijuana. Johnson left the Carters’ home later in the evening, and Ricky testified that Johnson said he was going to get more drugs and that he might steal something or rob something. Shayne testified that Johnson said that he was going to get money for more drugs and that “if he had to shoot someone, he would have to shoot someone.”
A taxicab company dispatcher testified that driver William Evans went to pick up a fare at 11:15 p.m. on January 8 and called in to confirm the fare fifteen minutes later. Around 11:55 p.m. a stranger’s voice came over the radio. Among other things, the stranger said that Evans had been knocked out. He stayed in touch with the dispatcher off and on until about 2:00 a.m. The dispatcher did not hear Evans after 11:30 p.m., and workers in an orange grove found Evans’ body on January 14. Evans had been robbed and shot twice in the face. Searchers found his taxicab, which had been set on fire, in an orange grove about a mile from Evans’ body.
When she got off work in the early hours of January 9, 1981, Amy Reid and her friend Ray Beasley went to a restaurant for breakfast. Johnson approached them in the parking lot and asked for a ride, claiming that his car had broken down. Beasley agreed to drive Johnson to a friend’s house. During the drive, Johnson asked Beasley to stop the car so that he could urinate. While out of the car, Johnson asked Beasley to come to the rear of the car. When Reid looked back, she saw Johnson holding a handgun pointed at Beasley. She then locked the car’s doors, moved to the driver’s seat, and drove away to look for help.
Reid telephoned the sheriffs department from a convenience store, and deputies Clifford Darrington and Samuel Allison responded to her call around 3:45 a.m. The deputies drove Reid back to where she had left Johnson and Beasley, but found no one there. Back in the patrol car they heard a radio call from another deputy, Theron Burnham, advising that he had seen a possible suspect on the road. When they arrived at Burnham’s location, they found his patrol car parked with the motor running, the lights on, and a door open, but could not see Burnham. Johnson, however, walked in front of their car, spoke to them, and then began firing at them with a handgun. The deputies returned Johnson’s shots, and he ran across a field and disappeared among some trees. Allison then found Burnham’s body in a roadside drainage ditch. He had been shot three times, and his service revolver was missing.
Later that day, Beasley’s body was found seven-tenths of a mile from where Burnham was killed. He had been shot once in the head, and his body was in a weedy area and could not be seen from the road. Although there were some coins in his pockets, his wallet was gone. The following afternoon Johnson’s wife was still at the Carters’ home. They saw a police sketch of the suspect in the [1288]*1288night’s events in a newspaper and discussed whether it looked like Johnson. Johnson telephoned the Carters’ home, and, after speaking with him, his wife became very upset. Ricky Carter asked Johnson if he had done the killings reported in the newspaper, and Johnson replied: “If that’s what it says.” Carter went to pick up Johnson, taking a shirt that Johnson changed into. Johnson threw the shirt he had been wearing, which had been described in the newspaper, out the car’s window. While driving home, Carter heard Johnson’s wife ask, “You killed him, too?” to which Johnson replied, “I guess so.” At the Carters’ home Johnson told them that he hit the deputy with his handgun when told to place his hands on the patrol car and then struggled with him, during and after which he shot the deputy three times.
The authorities arrested Johnson for the Beasley and Burnham murders on January 10 and charged him with Evans’ murder the following week. Reid, Allison, and Darrington identified him, and his fingerprints were found in Evans’ taxicab.
While Johnson was in jail awaiting trial, inmate James Leon Smith was in a cell near him. At trial Smith testified that Johnson told him that he killed a taxicab driver and set the taxicab on fire to destroy his fingerprints, that he shot Beasley while Beasley was on his knees and stole one hundred dollars from Beasley, and that he shot the deputy.

We affirmed Johnson’s convictions and sentences. Id. at 13.

Johnson filed an initial postconviction motion in 1994. Johnson v. State, 769 So.2d 990, 992 (Fla.2000). The postconviction court denied the motion, and we affirmed. Id. at 1006. In 2002, we denied Johnson’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Johnson v. Moore, 837 So.2d 343, 348 (Fla.2002). Johnson filed a successive postconviction motion in 2003. The post-conviction court denied Johnson’s motion, and we affirmed. Johnson v. State, 933 So.2d 1153 (Fla.2006) (table decision).

In 2007, Johnson filed a second successive postconviction motion. Johnson v. State, 44 So.3d 51, 56 (Fla.2010). The postconviction court denied Johnson’s claim. Id. Shortly thereafter, the Governor signed a second death warrant. Id. With both the appeal and death warrant pending, Johnson filed a third successive posteonviction motion. Id. We held that newly discovered evidence revealed that the jailhouse informant, James Leon Smith, “was acting as a government agent, and his testimony and notes concerning Johnson’s statements should have been suppressed.” Id. at 64. We further held that “the misconduct of the original prosecutor in this case, Hardy Pickard, ... tainted the State’s case at every stage of the proceedings and irremediably compromised the integrity of the entire 1988 penalty phase proceeding.” Id. at 64, 73.

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205 So. 3d 1285, 41 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 579, 2016 Fla. LEXIS 2597, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/paul-beasley-johnson-v-state-of-florida-fla-2016.