WARREN ALLEN, JR., APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 2d DCA | 2004-06-11
No. 2D03-5912
WHATLEY, CASANUEVA, and SALCINES, JJ., concur.
875 So. 2d 734 Florida District Court of Appeal, Second District (2004) Positive Treatment
Cited by 2 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

Warren Allen Jr. appealed the denial of his Rule 3.850 motion for postconviction relief claiming ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to challenge certain prospective jurors for cause in his sexual battery conviction. The court reversed and remanded on this claim, finding the trial court applied the wrong legal standard under Strickland v. Washington.


Holding

The court reversed the trial court's denial of Allen's claim, holding that the trial court applied the wrong standard in analyzing prejudice. Prejudice in jury bias cases is not determined by the sufficiency of evidence but rather by whether jurors indicated they would prejudge the case, thus depriving the defendant of a fair trial.


Headnotes

[1] The failure of trial counsel to challenge a juror for cause is a cognizable claim for postconviction relief.

[2] Prejudice in the context of ineffective assistance of counsel is established by a showing that counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair tria…

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

Key Quotes

“The issue is not whether the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions; the real issue is whether, as a result of counsel's performance, the panel which made the ultimate determination was composed of jurors who held the fact that Thompson exercised a fundamental constitutional right against him.”

Establishes the correct legal standard for evaluating ineffective assistance claims involving failure to challenge biased jurors—the focus is on jury composition and bias, not evidentiary sufficiency.

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

Allen was convicted after a jury trial of sexual battery. During voir dire, certain prospective jurors indicated they would draw negative conclusions …

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.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

[*735] PER CURIAM.

Warren Allen, Jr., challenges the order of the trial court summarily denying his motion for postconviction relief filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. We affirm, without comment, one of the two grounds for relief Allen raised in his motion, but reverse and remand for further proceedings on the second ground.

Allen was convicted after jury trial of sexual battery. In his motion Allen alleged that trial counsel was ineffective in failing to challenge certain prospective jurors1 for cause. The basis of the claim is that individual prospective jurors, during voir dire, indicated, inter alia, that they would draw a negative conclusion if Allen did not testify and that they were likely to believe the testimony of the child victim. The failure of trial counsel to challenge a juror for cause is a cognizable rule 3.850 claim. See Thompson v. State, 796 So. 2d 511 (Fla.2001); Chattin v. State, 800 So. 2d 665 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001).

In the present case, the trial court denied Allen’s claim, finding that under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), the claim did not satisfy the prejudice prong of Strickland because Allen’s “arguments lack merit and would not have changed the outcome of the trial.” The supreme court in Thompson concluded that prejudice can be established upon a “showing that counsel’s errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable.” 796 So. 2d at 515. In Thompson, the trial court denied Thompson’s claim that trial counsel was ineffective in failing to challenge a juror for cause on the basis that the evidence was more than sufficient to support the convictions. The supreme court stated: “The issue is not whether the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions; the real issue is whether, as a result of counsel’s performance, the panel which made the ultimate determination was composed of jurors who held the fact that Thompson exercised a fundamental constitutional right against him.” 796 So. 2d at 517. In the present case, the trial court found that Allen was not prejudiced because he would not have been acquitted had trial counsel challenged certain jurors for cause. Such a finding would appear to be based on the strength of the evidence presented by the State at trial. As noted in Thompson, this is the wrong standard for determining Allen’s claim. Clearly, if any jurors indicated that they would prejudge the case based on the age of the victim, or that they would hold it against Allen if he did not testify, then Allen was deprived of a fair trial.

We reverse the trial court’s denial of this ground, and remand to the trial court to consider Allen’s claim under the standard enunciated in Thompson.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings.

WHATLEY, CASANUEVA, and SALCINES, JJ., concur. . In fact, the members of the venire Allen alleges that trial counsel should have chai-lenged for cause all served on the jury in this case.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Davis v. State, 892 So. 2d 1073 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004)
    …made by the defendant to the extent that they are not refuted by the record.” Freeman [*1075] v. State, 761 So. 2d 1055, 1061 (Fla.2000). “The failure of trial counsel to challenge a juror for cause is a cognizable rule 3.850 claim.” Allen v. State, 875 So. 2d 734, 735 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004). Furthermore, an “allegation that counsel was ineffective for allowing a biased member of the venire to serve on a jury suggests a deficiency of performance sufficient to require a conclusive rebuttal by the record or an evid…

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw