explaining that a conviction may be reversed based on the exclusion of evidence where there is either a clear error by the trial court in its evidentiary rulings or “compelling reasons for exceptions” to the rules of evidence
How later courts described this case
- explaining that a conviction may be reversed based on the exclusion of evidence where there is either a clear error by the trial court in its evidentiary rulings or “compelling reasons for exceptions” to the rules of evidence
- noting that “[bjecause of the state of the law in Florida at the time of Knight’s trial, defense attorneys could not anticipate the conflict between the not yet decided Lockett decision and Florida’s law limiting a jury’s consideration of nonstatutory mitigating evidence”
- noting that a conviction must be reversed where there is "either clear error by the trial courts in their evidentiary rulings or compelling reasons for exceptions to state evidentiary or procedural rules”
- reasoning counsel may not be faulted for not presenting mitigating evidence after he investigated options, but defendant refused to permit presentation
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
CLARK, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur. We reverse only with respect to the Hitchcock issue. The law governing Florida’s jury instructions on non-statutory mitigating circumstances has changed since the district court opinion and judgment. This necessitates reversal.
I write to state briefly my reason for concluding there can be no harmless error. The district court’s opinion, Part XIII, page 99, finds that counsel was not ineffective at the sentencing phase. At page 122 the court states: “It is most difficult, but quite necessary, to make every effort to consider fully all aspects of the setting in which decisions were made by trial counsel.” That statement of the temporal consideration that must be a part of judicial decision making mandates that appellant be granted a re-sentencing proceeding. Because of the state of the law in Florida at the time of Knight’s trial, defense attorneys could not anticipate the conflict between the not yet decided Lockett decision and Florida’s law limiting a jury’s consideration of non-statutory mitigating evidence. The members of our court had differing opinions. See our 7-5 decision in Hitchcock v. Wainwright, 770 F.2d 1514 (1985) (en banc), rev’d 481 U.S. 393 , 107 S.Ct. 1821 , 95 L.Ed. 2d 347 (1987). 1
Because the facts of this case reflect the existence of non-statutory mitigating evidence at the time of Knight’s trial which had not been developed by defense counsel, a new sentencing hearing is required. This is consistent with a finding by the district court that defense counsel was not ineffective. Defense counsel in 1975 prepared his case in light of Florida law at the time.
. In Hitchcock- our court said:
In summary, for six years after the Florida death penalty statute was reenacted in 1972, there was some ambiguity as to whether a defendant had a right to introduce evidence in mitigation at a capital sentencing proceeding when the evidence fell outside the mitigating factors enumerated in the statute.
770 F.2d at 1516 .