William Thompson v. State of Florida

208 So. 3d 49, 41 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 510, 2016 Fla. LEXIS 2489
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedNovember 10, 2016
DocketSC15-1752
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 208 So. 3d 49 (William Thompson 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
William Thompson v. State of Florida, 208 So. 3d 49, 41 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 510, 2016 Fla. LEXIS 2489 (Fla. 2016).

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

William Lee Thompson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for a 1976 murder. His sentence became final in 1993. Since the United States Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional to execute persons with intellectual disabilities in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), Thompson has timely raised claims that he is intellectually dis[50]*50abled and cannot be executed. In denying Thompson relief, as more fully explained, the trial court and this Court relied on Cherry v. State, 959 So.2d 702, 712-14 (Fla.2007), which held that if a defendant could not establish an IQ score of 70 or below, then his intellectual disability claim should be denied without consideration of the other prongs of the intellectual disability test. In Hall v. Florida, — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 1986, 1990, 188 L.Ed.2d 1007 (2014), the United States Supreme Court held that Florida’s strict bright-line cutoff of 70 for IQ scores with respect to the first prong of the intellectual disability test “creates an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disabilities will be executed” in violation of Atkins and is, therefore, unconstitutional.1 Hall specifically disapproved of the bright-line cutoff of 70 for IQ scores stated by this Court in Cherry. Id. at 2000.

Although Thompson has had a broad range of IQ scores over his lifetime, he received several IQ scores below 75, and in 2009 the defense expert tested him with a score of 71. In reviewing the history of this case, it is clear that Thompson did not receive the type of “conjunctive and interrelated assessment” that Hall requires, as more recently set forth in Oats v. State, 181 So.3d 457, 460 (Fla.2015). As this Court stated in Oats, Hall did not just require that courts consider the statistical error margin in determining IQ, it also changed the manner in which intellectual disability evidence must be considered: “courts must consider all three prongs in determining an intellectual disability, as opposed to relying on just one factor as dispositive ... because these factors are interdependent, if one of the prongs is relatively less strong, a finding of intellectual disability may still be warranted based on the strength of other prongs.” 181 So.3d at 467-68. This Court’s recent opinion on remand in Hall v. State, 41 Fla. L. Weekly S372, 201 So.3d 628, 2016 WL 4697766 (Fla. Sept. 8, 2016), reaches the same conclusion in granting relief.

Because the trial court and this Court relied, in part, on the now invalid bright-line cutoff of an IQ score of 70 in denying Thompson relief, we have determined that Thompson should receive the benefit of Hall. Not only have we determined that Hall is retroactive utilizing a Witt2 analysis, Walls v. State, 2016 WL 6137287 (Fla. Oct. 20, 2016), but to fail to give Thompson the benefit of Hall, which disapproved of Cherry, would result in a manifest injustice, which is an exception to the law of the case doctrine. See State v. Owen, 696 So.2d 715, 720 (Fla.1997) (“[tjhis Court has the power to reconsider and correct erroneous rulings in exceptional circumstances and where reliance on the previous decision would result in manifest injustice, notwithstanding that such rulings have become the law of the case” and that “[a]n intervening decision by a higher court is one of the exceptional situations that this Court will consider when entertaining a request to modify the law of the case”). Because Thompson’s eligibility or ineligibility for execution must be determined in accordance with the correct United States Supreme Court jurisprudence, this case is a prime example of preventing a manifest injustice if we did not apply Hall to Thompson. Accordingly, we reverse the summary order denying relief and remand [51]*51to the trial court for a new evidentiary hearing on intellectual disability pursuant to the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Hall and this Court’s holding in Oats.3

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY BEFORE ATKINS

Thompson pled guilty to the March 30, 1976, brutal beating death of the victim, Sally Ivester. Thompson v. State, 389 So.2d 197, 198 (Fla.1980). In Thompson, this Court described the crimes, which occurred when William Lee Thompson was 24 years old:

The appellant Thompson, Rocco Surace, Barbara Savage, and the victim Sally Ivester were staying in a motel room. The girls were instructed to contact their homes to obtain money. The victim received only $25 after telling the others that she thought she could get $200 or $300. Both men became furious. Surace ordered the victim into the bedroom, where he took off his chain belt and began hitting her in the face. Surace then forced her to undress, after which the appellant Thompson began to strike her with the chain. Both men continued to beat and torture the victim. They rammed a chair leg into the victim’s vagina, tearing the inner wall and causing internal bleeding. They repeated the process with a night stick. The victim was tortured with lit cigarettes and lighters, and was forced to eat her sanitary napkin and lick spilt beer off the floor. This was followed by further severe beatings with the chain, club, and chair leg. The beatings were interrupted only when the victim was taken to a phone booth, where she was instructed to call her mother and request additional funds. After the call, the men resumed battering the victim in the motel room. The victim died as a result of internal bleeding and multiple injuries. The murder had been witnessed by Barbara Savage, who apparently feared equivalent treatment had she tried to leave the motel room.

Id.

Thompson’s mental condition has been an issue in both his circuit court proceedings and his appeals before this Court. On direct appeal, this Court allowed Thompson to withdraw his plea and remanded for further proceedings. See Thompson v. State, 351 So.2d 701 (Fla.1977). On remand, Thompson again pleaded guilty and again received a death sentence for the first-degree murder.4 The convictions and death sentence were affirmed by this Court. See Thompson, 389 So.2d at 200. In affirming the convictions and death sentence, this Court concluded in pertinent part that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to order further psychiatric evaluations of Thompson “in view of the four previous reports and the failure of [Thompson's counsel to identify any particular circumstance that had caused the mental condition of [Thompson] to change since those prior examinations and the plea of guilty.” Id. at 199. Sub[52]*52sequently, this Court affirmed the postcon-viction court’s order denying relief on Thompson’s first postconviction motion, in which Thompson claimed that his codefen-dant Surace was the dominant actor in the murder and that Surace’s life sentence rendered the death sentence disproportionate. See Thompson v. State, 410 So.2d 500 (Fla.1982).5 On appeal of the postcon-viction court’s denial of his second postcon-viction motion, at which time Thompson also petitioned this Court for.

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Bluebook (online)
208 So. 3d 49, 41 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 510, 2016 Fla. LEXIS 2489, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/william-thompson-v-state-of-florida-fla-2016.