FRANK ELIJAH SMITH, PETITIONER-APPELLEE, CROSS-APPELLANT,
v.
HARRY K. SINGLETARY, RESPONDENT-APPELLANT, CROSS-APPELLEE

11th Cir. | 1992-08-18
No. 90-3831
Before TJOFLAT, Chief Judge, HATCHETT and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges.
970 F.2d 766 Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (1992) Positive Treatment
Cited by 4 cases
Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM:

PER CURIAM: In this capital case, the state trial judge prevented defense counsel from presenting and the jury from considering mitigating circumstances not listed in the Florida death penalty statute. Fla.Stat. § 921.141.

The district court ruled that this Hitchcock v. Dugger, 481 U.S. 393, 107 S.Ct. 1821, 95 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987), error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Smith v. Dug-ger, 758 F.Supp. 688 (N.D.Fla.1990). Our review indicates that the record well supports the district court’s findings of fact, and the district court faithfully applied the Supreme Court’s and this circuit’s precedents to the facts. This court is unable to say that the Hitchcock error is not harmful beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).

Accordingly, the district court is affirmed. AFFIRMED. The history of this case is found at Smith v. State, 424 So. 2d 726 (Fla.1982), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1145, 103 S.Ct. 3129, 77 L.Ed.2d 1379 (1983); Smith v. State, 457 So. 2d 1380 (Fla. 1984); Smith v. Dugger, 840 F. 2d 787 (11th Cir.1988); Smith v. Dugger, 888 F. 2d 94 (11th Cir.1989); Smith v. State, 556 So. 2d 1096 (Fla. 1990); and Smith v. Dugger, 493 U.S. 1064, 110 S.Ct. 1104, 107 L.Ed.2d 1012 (1990).

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

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Cited By

  • Smith v. Singletary, 61 F.3d 815 (11th Cir. 1995)
    …error was harmless; instead, the district court granted Smith relief on his Hitchcock claim because it found that the error was not harmless under Chapman. Smith v. Dugger, 758 F.Supp. 688 (N.D.Fla.1990). This court affirmed. Smith v. Singletary, 970 F. 2d 766 (11th Cir.1992). The state then petitioned for a writ of certiorari. On April 26, 1993, the Supreme Court granted the state’s petition and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Brecht, which it had recently decided. Singletary v. Smit…
  • Kermit Smith, Jr. v. Dixon, 996 F.2d 667 (4th Cir. 1993)
    …for further consideration in light of Brecht. See Singletary v. Duest, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1940, 123 L.Ed.2d 647 (1993), vacating 967 F. 2d 472 (11th Cir.1992); see also Singletary v. Smith, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1940, 123 L.Ed.2d 646 (1993), vacating 970 F. 2d 766 (11th Cir.1992). Notably, however, the Eleventh Circuit had not conducted harmless-error analysis in the first instance; it had reviewed a decision by the Florida Supreme Court finding the error harmless. That is not the case here. The Supreme Cour…

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