ERIC MILLER, RONALD WEAREN, JUAN HERNANDEZ, KELVIN BERNARD JONES, CARLOS L'SHERAD, SIDNEY HERBERT HIPBURN A/K/A "PIE", CURTIS D. JOHNSON, ARTHUR HALL, FREDDIE MORALES, APPELLANTS,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
Multiple defendants appealed convictions and habitual violent offender sentences, claiming the sentences were imposed based on racial discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The court rejected their equal protection challenge, holding that statistical studies showing disparate sentencing patterns are not probative evidence of racial discrimination in individual habitual offender cases.
Statistical studies showing disparate sentencing patterns are not probative evidence that racial considerations played a role in the imposition of habitual offender sentences in individual cases. Therefore, the trial court properly refused to conduct an evidentiary hearing on the defendants' equal protection claims.
[1] Statistical studies alone are not probative on the issue of whether racial considerations played a role in the imposition of habitual offender sentences.
[2] The imposition of a habitual offender sentence involves numerous decision-makers and discretionary factors, making broad statistical studies insufficient to prove discrim…
Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“We agree with the First and Fourth District Courts of Appeal that statistical studies of this sort are not probative on the issue of whether racial considerations played a role in the imposition of habitual offender sentences.”
Establishes the core holding that aggregate statistical evidence cannot establish racial discrimination in individual sentencing decisions.
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceThe defendants were convicted and sentenced as habitual violent offenders under Florida Statutes Section 775.084. To support their equal protection cl…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Racial Discrimination In Sentencing cases and more on FLexlaw
PER CURIAM.
This is a consolidated appeal by the defendant Eric Miller and other defendants from various judgments of conviction and sentences and denials of motions to vacate sentence pursuant to Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.850 entered below. The sole point urged on appeal is that the trial court erred in refusing to conduct an evidentiary hearing on the defendants’ claim that a habitual violent offender sentence, under Section 775.084, Florida Statutes (1991), was unlawfully imposed on these defendants based on racially discriminatory motives in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and of Article I, Section 2 of the Florida Constitution. We expressly directed the parties to address this issue in the Eric Miller case and relinquished jurisdiction to the trial court for the purpose of allowing the defendant to adduce evidence to support this claim; upon remand, the trial court consolidated this case with other pending cases in which the defendants therein made an identical claim. This court has since had the benefit of extensive and able briefs on this issue from both parties and from amici curiae American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and the Florida Public Defenders Association; we congratulate all counsel on the professional excellence of their briefs and oral argument before this court.
It is undisputed that the sole evidence proffered by the defendants below in support of their equal protection challenge is (1) a statistical study on habitual violent offender sentences imposed by the Circuit Court for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit between October 1, 1988 and February 1, 1993; and (2) supporting sociological history of alleged racial discrimination over the past one hundred years in the criminal justice system in Dade County. The defendants proffered no evidence specific to their cases that shows that racial considerations — namely, that the defendants were black — played a part in the habitual violent offender sentences imposed in the cases before the court.
We agree with the First and Fourth District Courts of Appeal that statistical studies of this sort are not probative on the issue of whether racial considerations played a role in the imposition of habitual offender sentences. Hartley v. State, 650 So. 2d 1044 (Fla. 4th DCA, 1995); Jackson v. State, 641 So. 2d 1369 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994); Dawson v. State, 636 So. 2d 858 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994); Pittman v. State, 633 So. 2d 1125 (Fla. 1st DCA), rev. denied, 642 So. 2d 747 (Fla.1994).
This is so because the imposition of a habitual offender sentence involves (1) numerous decision-makers, rather than a single decision-maker, namely, (a) the state attorney in her decision to request the court to impose a habitual offender sentence, and (b) the various circuit judges in the criminal division of the circuit court in their respective decisions as to whether to accede to the state attorney’s request; and (2) the presence of numerous discretionary factors which may permissibly go into both the state attorney and the trial judge’s decision on whether a habitual offender sentence should be imposed, quite apart from the statutory criteria for such sentences. See Burdick v. State, 594 So. 2d 267 (Fla.1992); Cotton v. State, 588 So. 2d 694 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991), approved, 595 So. 2d 957 (Fla.1992); State v. Padron, 571 So. 2d 102 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990); McNair v. State, 563 So. 2d 804 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990); see also Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 82 S.Ct. 501, 7 L.Ed.2d 446 (1962); Barber v. State, 564 So. 2d 1169 (Fla. 1st DCA), rev. denied, 576 So. 2d 284 (Fla.1990).
This being so, we think the imposition of a habitual offender sentence is comparable to the imposition of the death penalty as to which it has been held that statistical studies of this nature are not probative on the issue of whether the death penalty has been imposed in a given case based on racially discriminatory considerations. McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 107 S.Ct. 1756, 95 L.Ed.2d 262 (1987); Foster v. State, 614 So. 2d 455 (Fla.1992), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 398, 126 L.Ed.2d 346 (1993).
Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court did not err in refusing to conduct an evidentiary hearing on the defendants’ constitutional claims. The final judgments of conviction and sentences and denials of motions to vacate are, accordingly,
Affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Kirk v. State, 663 So. 2d 1373 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995)…rook v. State, 629 So. 2d 129 (Fla.1993); Reeves v. State, 612 So. 2d 560 (Fla.1992); Ross v. State, 601 So. 2d 1190 (Fla.1992).2 Many of these challenges included a specific claim of racial discrimination in the use of the statute. Miller v. State, 651 So. 2d 138 (Fla. 3d DCA), rev. den., 659 So. 2d 1087 (Fla.1995); McKinley v. State, 650 So. 2d 1052 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995); Hartley v. State, 650 So. 2d 1044 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995); Lamar v. State, 650 So. 2d 1044 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995); Dawson v. State, 636 So. 2d 858…
-
Torace Jones and Charlie Gasper v. State, 676 So. 2d 26 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996)…ied in a racially discriminatory manner, and that a defendant must prove that he or she was subjected to purposeful discrimination based on race to establish such a claim. E.g., Bartley v. State, 657 So. 2d 1272 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995); Miller v. State, 651 So. 2d 138 (Fla. 3d DCA), review denied, 659 So. 2d 1087 (Fla.1995); McKinley v. State, 650 So. 2d 1052 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995); Hartley v. State, 650 So. 2d 1044 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995); Pittman v. State, 633 So. 2d 1125 (Fla. 1st DCA), review denied, 642 So. 2d 747 (…
-
Fernandez v. State, 683 So. 2d 149 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996)….S. —, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 134 L.Ed.2d 687 (1996); Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 98 S.Ct. 663, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978); Foster v. State, 614 So. 2d 455 (Fla.1992), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 951, 114 S.Ct. 398, 126 L.Ed.2d 346 (1993); Miller v. State, 651 So. 2d 138 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995), review denied, 659 So. 2d 1087 (Fla.1995). Affirmed.…
Authorities Cited (14 total)
- Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448 (U.S. 1962)
- McCLESKEY v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (U.S. 1987)
- Burdick v. State, 594 So. 2d 267 (Fla. 1992)
- Barber v. State, 564 So. 2d 1169 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990)
- Foster v. State, 614 So. 2d 455 (Fla. 1992)
- Stanford Lamar v. State, 650 So. 2d 1044 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995)
- Pittman v. State, 633 So. 2d 1125 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994)
- Parsons v. State (Fla. 3d DCA 2023)
- Cotton v. State, 588 So. 2d 694 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991)
- McNAIR v. State, 563 So. 2d 804 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990)