State v. Gilson

56 So. 3d 146, 2011 Fla. App. LEXIS 3610, 2011 WL 923948
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMarch 18, 2011
DocketNo. 2D08-4524
StatusPublished

This text of 56 So. 3d 146 (State v. Gilson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Gilson, 56 So. 3d 146, 2011 Fla. App. LEXIS 3610, 2011 WL 923948 (Fla. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

DAVIS, Judge.

The State challenges the final order of the trial court granting Mark Gilson’s motion to dismiss the charge of attempted first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer due to the State’s destruction of certain evidence. We reverse.

In 1997, Gilson was convicted after jury trial of attempted first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer. The State alleged that during a traffic stop, Gilson shot Lee County Sheriffs Deputy Mark Cohen. Upon conviction, the trial court sentenced Gilson to forty years’ imprisonment with a twenty-five-year minimum mandatory. This court affirmed Gilson’s conviction and sentence. See Gilson v. State, 725 So.2d 1119 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998) (table decision).

On November 13, 2000, however, Gilson sought and was granted postconviction relief in the form of a new trial. As the State prepared to retry Gilson, both parties learned that certain evidence from the first trial had been destroyed despite the fact that it had been the subject of a protective order entered on April 4, 1997. Gilson moved to dismiss the charge on the basis that the destroyed evidence, which included Gilson’s car and the clothing Gil-son had been wearing on the night of the incident, was exculpatory and had been destroyed by the State in bad faith. Following a hearing, the trial court granted Gilson’s motion to dismiss, concluding that the evidence “was, at the very least, favorable to the defense as impeachment evidence” and that “the destruction of this evidence has prejudiced the defense because it deprives [Gilson] of the ability to receive a fair trial.” It is the trial court’s order dismissing the charge based on the destruction of evidence that the State now appeals.

The charges against Gilson arose from a traffic stop that resulted in gunfire being exchanged between an occupant of Gilson’s vehicle and Deputy Cohen. At Gilson’s first trial, Deputy Cohen testified that before stopping Gilson, he had pulled his patrol car alongside of Gilson’s vehicle. Deputy Cohen further testified that he observed that the driver was the only occupant of the vehicle. After he effectuated the traffic stop, Deputy Cohen exited his vehicle, but before he could approach the other car, a man exited the driver’s side of that vehicle and shot at the deputy, striking him in the leg. Deputy Cohen returned fire, and as the car sped off, he fired several shots into the vehicle. Gilson was later apprehended, wounded and hiding under a house in the general area.

Gilson, on the other hand, asserted at the first trial that although he was the driver, a man named Rick Roberts was riding in his backseat on the driver’s side. Gilson maintained that when Deputy Cohen stopped him that night, Roberts pushed his way out of the backseat and out the driver’s side door and began firing at Deputy Cohen. Gilson asserted that he then drove off as the officer fired at his vehicle.

Although all thirty-three items of evidence that were subject to the protective order put in place after the first trial were subsequently destroyed, Gilson’s motion to dismiss addresses only the evidentiary value of the clothing he was wearing on the night of the incident and the car he drove that night. In his motion to dismiss, Gil-son maintained that further forensic examination of his shirt and car would have impeached the State’s evidence and that the destruction of these items deprives him of the ability to obtain a fair trial. Gilson therefore argued that, pursuant to [148]*148Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), the attempted first-degree murder charge must be dismissed.

The trial court agreed, concluding that because the evidence at issue was favorable to Gilson as impeachment evidence, Gilson had established a Brady violation.

On appeal, the State argues that the trial court erred in granting Gilson’s motion to dismiss because Gilson failed to establish both that the evidence was destroyed in bad faith and that he would be unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means.

To establish a Brady violation, generally, “[t]he defendant must allege specific facts that, if accepted as true, establish a prima facie case that (1) the State possessed evidence favorable to the accused because it was either exculpatory or impeaching; (2) the State willfully or inadvertently suppressed the evidence; and (3) the defendant was prejudiced.”

State v. Buitrago, 39 So.3d 540, 541 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010) (alteration in original) (quoting Allen v. State, 854 So.2d 1255, 1259 (Fla.2003)). However, in Buitrago, this court further concluded that although the trial court in that case properly found a Brady violation, “whether [such a] due process violation was sufficiently severe to warrant dismissal of the case requires further consideration.” Id. at 542.

Whatever duty the Constitution imposes on the States to preserve evidence, that duty must be limited to evidence that might be expected to play a significant role in the suspect’s defense. To meet this standard of constitutional materiality, evidence must both possess an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed, and be of such a nature that the defendant would be unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means.

California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 488-89, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984) (footnote omitted) (citation omitted). The State argues that Gilson failed to show that the evidence had an exculpatory value “that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed” or that he is now unable to obtain comparable evidence by other “reasonably available means.”

At the first trial, Gilson presented a misidentification defense. Although he admitted that he was driving the car, he testified that there was a second person in the car, seated in the backseat behind the driver. He testified that it was this second person who exited the car and began shooting at Deputy Cohen. According to Gilson, when the shooting began, he drove off and as he was leaving the scene, he was shot in the back by Deputy Cohen, who was firing into his car from the rear.

Asserting that he would pursue the same line of defense at his second trial, Gilson first argues that immediately after the incident, Deputy Cohen three times described the shooter as wearing a white, off-white, or “lighter colored” short-sleeved shirt, possibly a button-down. The shirt that Gilson was wearing at the time he was apprehended on the night of the shooting — the same shirt that was destroyed by the State — was a dark blue, long-sleeved shirt. As such he claims that he needs the shirt to impeach the officer’s testimony that he was the shooter.

We disagree. For impeachment purposes, a photograph of the shirt is comparable evidence. In fact, Gilson introduced a photo of the shirt into evidence for this purpose at his first trial during the cross-examination of the officer who first interviewed Gilson on the night of the shooting. That officer confirmed that the photograph accurately depicted what Gil-son was wearing when he was appre[149]*149hended. Subsequent to the hearing on the motion to dismiss, but prior to the trial court issuing its dismissal order, the State informed the court that photos of Gilson’s clothing were still available to Gilson.

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Related

Brady v. Maryland
373 U.S. 83 (Supreme Court, 1963)
California v. Trombetta
467 U.S. 479 (Supreme Court, 1984)
Davis v. State
26 So. 3d 519 (Supreme Court of Florida, 2009)
Allen v. State
854 So. 2d 1255 (Supreme Court of Florida, 2003)
State v. Buitrago
39 So. 3d 540 (District Court of Appeal of Florida, 2010)
State v. Balezos
765 So. 2d 819 (District Court of Appeal of Florida, 2000)

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Bluebook (online)
56 So. 3d 146, 2011 Fla. App. LEXIS 3610, 2011 WL 923948, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gilson-fladistctapp-2011.