ANDRE J. POWELL, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 1996-05-08
No. 95-3761
GLICKSTEIN, WARNER and GROSS, JJ., concur.
673 So. 2d 119 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (1996) Positive Treatment
Cited by 6 cases

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.

Synopsis

The appellate court reversed a trial court's denial of a post-conviction motion claiming ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to strike a biased juror. The court found that the trial court's reliance on an incomplete transcript excerpt prevented proper review of whether the juror harbored disqualifying bias.


Holding

The court reversed and remanded, directing the trial court to either attach complete exhibits establishing counsel was not ineffective or conduct an evidentiary hearing on the juror bias issue. The court rejected the notion that Benner had a fixed opinion of guilt but found his answers created an impression he could not completely refrain from prejudging the defendant.


Headnotes

[1] A trial court must attach exhibits that conclusively establish the ineffectiveness of counsel or conduct an evidentiary hearing on the issue.

[2] A trial court's attachment of incomplete transcript pages is insufficient to conclusively establish that counsel was not ineffective.

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Key Quotes

“I think anyone brought to trial there's a good possibility.”

Juror Benner's statement showing he believed defendants brought to trial likely committed the crime they are charged with

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Facts & Procedural History

Appellant Powell sought post-conviction relief under Rule 3.850, claiming trial counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge Juror Benner for caus…

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Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

We reverse the trial court’s denial of appellant’s rule 3.850 motion and remand with alternative direction; namely, either to (1) attach to the record such exhibits which conclusively establish trial counsel was not ineffective for his failure to strike Juror Benner, or (2) conduct an evidentiary hearing on that sole issue. None of appellant’s remaining claims reflect error. The trial court chose to attach to its order only the state’s response to appellant’s motion. Exhibit B to that response included only pages 79, 80 and 81 of the transcript with respect to the issue of Juror Benner. The first page starts in mid-thought and the last page ends in mid-sentence.

We reject appellant’s claim that Juror Benner sat with a fixed opinion as to appellant’s guilt. Appellant makes the oft repeated mistake of quoting only a portion of the above three pages which disproves that notion.

Nevertheless, the above three pages do not eliminate the impression in the juror’s answers as to his inability to refrain completely from prejudging appellant.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: What do you think about that?

[JUROR] BENNER: There has to be a possibility. They wouldn’t just pick someone off of the street for a crime. I think there is a possibility that he did it or he wouldn’t be here.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: What about it? Tell us about it.

[JUROR] BENNER: I think a lot of times like in a criminal case is that someone, if they’re found not guilty it’s not for the fact that they’re not guilty it’s that that’s a technicality. I think a lot of times he wouldn’t be here unless there was a good possibility that he did do the crime.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Let’s suppose after all the evidence you look at it and you say to yourself there is a good possibility he did this crime.

[JUROR] BENNER: I’m saying in general, I think anyone brought to trial there’s a good possibility.

The dialogue between defense counsel and the juror as to his view of reasonable doubt after the close of the state’s evidence was as follows:

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: But in this case, at the end of the State’s case you say to yourself, in my mind more likely than not he did this. There are doubts, okay. But in your mind, more likely than not, in your mind is that sufficient for you to convict him?

[JUROR] BENNER: Are talking like fifty-one percent?

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Let’s try fifty one percent. What if he’s fifty-one percent guilty?

[JUROR] BENNER: No. [DEFENSE COUNSEL]: What if it he’s sixty-one percent guilty? [JUROR] BENNER: I’m not sure what the cutoff is, but he’s in the nineties.

(Emphasis added).

At the end of the page 81, the transcript ends with the following remark by defense counsel to Juror Benner: “We were talking about that hundred percent....”

Because the trial court based its order solely on the above three pages, neither it nor the state can fill in the gaps for the present appeal by referring to more of the voir dire. Yet, the state argues the entire voir dire is relevant and that the trial court had the opportunity to view the proceeding. What the trial court has chosen to view for this point on appeal is the above three pages, which is insufficient to answer the question which appellant has raised.

GLICKSTEIN, WARNER and GROSS, JJ., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Kitchen v. State, 764 So. 2d 868 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)
    …e. The relevant portions of the transcript are not attached to the trial court order and are not a part of our record. A claim that counsel was ineffective for failure to challenge a juror, if established, is legally sufficient. See Powell v. State, 673 So. 2d 119 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996) (reversing summary denial of post-conviction relief, where three pages of record on which trial court relied did not establish that trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to strike juror); Brown v. State, 654 So. 2d 272 (F…
  • Robinson v. State, 900 So. 2d 689 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005)
    …icient. We reverse the trial court’s summary denial of relief, and remand for either an evi-dentiary hearing or attachments of portions of the record to refute appellant’s claim. Kitchen v. State, 764 So. 2d 868 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000); Powell v. State, 673 So. 2d 119 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996). GUNTHER, POLEN and TAYLOR, JJ., concur.…
  • Fernandez v. State, 758 So. 2d 1199 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)
    …nial of motion for postconviction relief based on trial court’s failure to swear in an interpreter). With respect to failure to preserve alleged errors in voir dire procedures, see Baber v. State, 696 So. 2d 490 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997); Powell v. State, 673 So. 2d 119 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996); Williams v. State, 673 So. 2d 960 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996); Gibbs v. State, 604 So. 2d 544 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992). Accordingly, we reverse and remand for further proceedings as to parts (D) and (E) of appellant’s fourth ground for rel…

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