Demetrius Carey v. Department of Corrections ( 2023 )

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[PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 20-14602
____________________
DEMETRIUS CAREY,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
Respondent-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 0:17-cv-62458-DPG
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 20-14602
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, ROSENBAUM, and MARCUS,
Circuit Judges.
WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge:
This appeal from the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas
corpus requires us to decide whether trial counsel provided ineffec-
tive assistance by requesting that the jury be instructed on lesser
included offenses. We hold that counsel did not. And because the
petitioner’s claim that insufficient evidence supported his convic-
tion was denied by the state courts based on an adequate and inde-
pendent state procedural ground, he is also not entitled to relief on
that claim. We affirm the denial of the petition.
I. BACKGROUND
Elena Carrasco was shot and killed during a robbery in 2005.
Fourteen-year-old Demetrius Carey was charged with Carrasco’s
murder and with armed robbery. The indictment charged premed-
itated murder “and/or” felony murder. The indictment also
charged Carey with using a firearm to commit both crimes, and the
use of a firearm would reclassify the felonies as higher-degree of-
fenses and enhance his sentence. See generally FLA. STAT.
§ 775.087. The prosecutors’ theory at trial was that Carey commit-
ted the robbery and the murder by shooting the victim. Carey de-
nied any involvement.
During the charging conference, the parties and trial judge
discussed jury instructions on lesser offenses at length. They began
with the murder charge. At first, defense counsel did not request
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20-14602 Opinion of the Court 3
jury instructions on any lesser offenses. But after the prosecutors
requested jury instructions on second-degree murder “with a fire-
arm” and manslaughter “with a firearm,” defense counsel re-
quested instructions on “all” lesser included offenses. Regarding
the armed robbery charge, both parties at first did not request in-
structions on lesser offenses, but defense counsel later requested
jury instructions on the lesser included offenses of robbery with a
weapon and robbery.
The jury convicted Carey of second-degree murder and rob-
bery. The verdict form also included interrogatories about the fire-
arm enhancement. The jury had to determine whether Carey “ac-
tually possess[ed],” “actually discharge[d],” or “actually inflict[ed]
death . . . as a result of discharging” a firearm. The jury answered
“no” to all three firearm interrogatories regarding both crimes.
Carey moved for a new trial. He argued that because the
victim was undisputedly shot, the jury’s finding that Carey did not
possess or use a firearm meant that Carey did not commit the mur-
der or the robbery. He reasoned that the conviction must have
been based on a theory that Carey was present when someone else
committed the crimes. But he was not charged as an accessory, nor
was the jury instructed on a theory of vicarious liability. He con-
tended that the evidence could not support the convictions and
that the verdict was legally inconsistent.
The trial judge denied the motion for a new trial and sen-
tenced Carey to life imprisonment for the second-degree murder
and a concurrent 15 years of imprisonment for the robbery. Carey
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4 Opinion of the Court 20-14602
pursued an unsuccessful direct appeal. See Carey v. State, 27 So. 3d
39 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2010). Carey then sought postconviction re-
lief in the state courts.
Carey filed three motions under Florida Rule of Criminal
Procedure 3.850. The trial court denied the first motion on all
grounds except one: it granted an evidentiary hearing on Carey’s
claim that his trial counsel was ineffective for incorrectly advising
him that he did not qualify as a “youthful offender” for sentencing.
But after the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment re-
stricts life sentences for juvenile offenders, see Miller v. Alabama,
567 U.S. 460 (2012), Carey moved to correct his life sentence for
the murder conviction. The parties agreed to a sentence of 30 years
of imprisonment, and Carey was resentenced. Carey’s second Rule
3.850 motion was denied in its entirety.
After he was resentenced, Carey filed a third motion that as-
serted two grounds for relief. First, he argued that his trial counsel
was ineffective for requesting jury instructions on the lesser of-
fenses of which he was convicted. Second, he argued that insuffi-
cient evidence supported his murder conviction. The trial court de-
nied the motion and denied Carey’s motion for reconsideration.
And the Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed summarily.
Carey then filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus
that asserted the same two claims for relief that he alleged in his
third Florida Rule 3.850 motion. The district court denied the peti-
tion and denied Carey’s motion for reconsideration. It determined
that both of Carey’s claims were procedurally barred because the
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20-14602 Opinion of the Court 5
state court had denied the claims based on adequate and independ-
ent grounds under state law. But it agreed with Carey that the pro-
cedural default of his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel was
excused under Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1, 14 (2012), because
Carey filed his first state motion pro se, he was not appointed an
attorney until after the claim became untimely under state law, and
his claim was a substantial one. When it considered the merits of
the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel de novo, see Rompilla
v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 390 (2005), the district court denied relief on
the ground that Carey could not prove that the decision to request
jury instructions on lesser offenses prejudiced his defense. And
Carey did not argue that his claim of insufficient evidence was re-
viewable despite his procedural default.
We granted a certificate of appealability on two issues:
whether the district court correctly determined that Carey could
not establish prejudice from the jury instructions requested by his
counsel and whether the district court correctly determined that
the state court dismissed Carey’s claim of insufficient evidence as
impermissibly successive. In briefing Carey’s claim of ineffective
assistance of counsel, both parties addressed counsel’s performance
as intertwined with prejudice. As a result, at oral argument, the
parties consented to expanding the certificate of appealability to in-
clude the performance element of Carey’s claim of ineffective as-
sistance of counsel. Cf. Clark v. Crosby, 335 F.3d 1303, 1307 (11th
Cir. 2003) (exercising discretion to expand the certificate of appeal-
ability after oral argument); Dell v. United States, 710 F.3d 1267,
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6 Opinion of the Court 20-14602
1272–73 (11th Cir. 2013) (expanding the certificate of appealability
and collecting cases).
We appointed Melissa Salinas of the University of Michigan
Law School’s federal appellate litigation clinic as counsel for Carey.
Max Vogel presented oral argument. We thank Ms. Salinas, Mr.
Vogel, and the clinic for accepting the appointment and for their
excellent representation.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
“We review de novo a district court’s grant or denial of a
habeas corpus petition.” McNair v. Campbell, 416 F.3d 1291, 1297
(11th Cir. 2005). “An ineffective assistance of counsel claim is a
mixed question of law and fact subject to de novo review.” Id. “We
review de novo the determination of a district court that a habeas
petitioner is procedurally barred from raising a claim in federal
court.” Henry v. Warden, 750 F.3d 1226, 1230 (11th Cir. 2014).
III. DISCUSSION
We divide our discussion into two parts. First, we hold that
because the decision to request jury instructions on lesser included
offenses was reasonable, Carey failed to prove that counsel per-
formed deficiently. Second, we hold that because the state court
relied on a state rule against successive motions to deny Carey’s
claim of insufficient evidence, he is procedurally barred from pur-
suing that claim in federal court.
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A. Carey Failed to Prove Deficient Performance.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to the effective
assistance of counsel. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668,
686 (1984). When a petitioner argues that his right to effective as-
sistance was violated, he must prove “that counsel’s representation
fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.” Id. at 688. And
he must prove “that the deficient performance prejudiced the de-
fense.” Id. at 687.
Because a petitioner must prove both deficient performance
and prejudice, a court need not address one element if it deter-
mines that the petitioner has failed to prove the other. Dingle v.
Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 480 F.3d 1092, 1099 (11th Cir. 2007). And
we may affirm on any ground supported by the record. See Kernel
Records Oy v. Mosley, 694 F.3d 1294, 1309 (11th Cir. 2012). Alt-
hough the district court denied relief because it determined that
Carey failed to prove prejudice, we need not decide that issue. We
affirm the denial of relief because Carey failed to prove deficient
performance.
We must be “highly deferential” when we evaluate coun-
sel’s performance. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689. “A fair assessment of
attorney performance requires that every effort be made to elimi-
nate the distorting effects of hindsight,” and the petitioner “must
overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the chal-
lenged action might be considered sound trial strategy.” Id. (inter-
nal quotation marks and citation omitted). Deficient performance
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8 Opinion of the Court 20-14602
means that “counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not
functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth
Amendment.” Id. at 687.
Carey makes two arguments for why the decision to request
jury instructions on lesser included offenses was objectively unrea-
sonable. First, he argues that the requested instructions were con-
fusing or misleading in the light of the evidence. He contends that
because the robbery and murder were undisputedly committed
with a firearm, the requested instructions on second-degree mur-
der without the firearm enhancement and on robbery were inap-
plicable. Second, he argues that even if the instructions on the
lesser offenses were correct and lawful, counsel’s decision to re-
quest those instructions was deficient performance because “[a]ny
benefit was illusory”—at least as to the murder charge—given that
“[b]oth second degree murder with a firearm and second degree
murder without a firearm carried the same potential life sentence
that the court imposed.” Both arguments are unavailing.
The jury instructions on second-degree murder and on rob-
bery were neither confusing nor inapplicable. Under Florida law,
lesser offenses are divided into two categories: necessarily included
lesser offenses, which are “those offenses in which the statutory el-
ements of the lesser included offense are always subsumed within
those of the charged offense,” Sanders v. State, 944 So. 2d 203, 206
(Fla. 2006), and permissive lesser offenses, which exist when “the
two offenses appear to be separate on the face of the statutes, but
the facts alleged in the accusatory pleadings are such that the lesser
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20-14602 Opinion of the Court 9
included offense cannot help but be perpetrated once the greater
offense has been,” id. (alterations adopted) (internal quotation
marks and citation omitted). A “jury may convict the defendant of
. . . any offense that as a matter of law is a necessarily included of-
fense or a [permissive] lesser included offense of the offense
charged in the indictment or information and is supported by the
evidence. The judge shall not instruct on any lesser included of-
fense as to which there is no evidence.” FLA. R. CRIM. P. 3.510(b).
According to the schedule of lesser offenses applicable at the
time of Carey’s trial, which is “an authoritative compilation,” In re
Use by Trial Courts of Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal
Cases, 431 So. 2d 594, 597 (Fla. 1981), second-degree murder is a
necessarily included lesser offense of first-degree premeditated
murder, and robbery is a necessarily included lesser offense of
armed robbery, see Fla. Std. Jury Instr. (Crim.) 7.2 Murder—First
Degree (2008); Fla. Std. Jury Instr. (Crim.) 15.1 Robbery (2008).
Carey contends that the evidence did not support the commission
of any offense without a firearm, but a necessarily included lesser
offense, by definition, is always included in the major offense. See
State v. Wimberly, 498 So. 2d 929, 930–32 (Fla. 1986) (holding that
the last sentence of Rule 3.510(b) applies only to permissive lesser
offenses, not to necessarily included lesser offenses, and explaining
that necessarily included lesser offenses are “always included in the
major offense”); Wheat v. State, 433 So. 2d 1290, 1291 (Fla. Dist.
Ct. App. 1983) (“[I]n any case in which there is sufficient proof of
the greater offense to go to the jury, there is inescapably proof of a
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10 Opinion of the Court 20-14602
lesser offense which is necessarily included within the offense
charged.”).
Under Florida law, it is irrelevant whether, as Carey con-
tends, the trial judge and the prosecution thought there was no ev-
idence that the murder and robbery were committed without a
firearm. If the instruction is requested and the trial judge deter-
mines that an “offense is a necessarily lesser included offense, an
instruction must be given,” and the trial judge has no discretion in
whether to provide the instruction or not. Wimberly, 498 So. 2d at
932; see also Thompson v. State, 487 So. 2d 311, 312 (Fla. Dist. Ct.
App. 1986) (“As a matter of law, robbery without a weapon . . . is a
necessarily [included lesser] offense of robbery while carrying a
firearm . . . [and once requested,] although the trial court found
that there was a total lack of evidence to support a jury finding that
the robbery in question was committed without a weapon or fire-
arm,” the defendants were entitled to that instruction.).
The only difference between the jury instructions requested
by the prosecution and those requested by Carey’s trial counsel is
the sentencing enhancement and felony reclassification under sec-
tion 775.087 for the use of a firearm. But the sentencing enhance-
ment is only that—a sentencing enhancement—and not an ele-
ment of an offense. A jury’s verdict regarding a sentencing en-
hancement under section 775.087 is “analytically separate from ver-
dicts for underlying crimes, and neither eliminates nor supplies an
element of the underlying crimes.” Birch v. State, 248 So. 3d 1213,
1219 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2018); see also Sanders, 944 So. 2d at 207
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(“While reclassification and enhancement statutes have made it dif-
ficult for trial courts to prepare appropriate verdict forms, the basic
premise of what constitutes a proper lesser included offense has not
changed.”).
Carey’s other argument—that the decision to request the
lesser-included instructions was unreasonable because “[a]ny ben-
efit was illusory” as “[b]oth second degree murder with a firearm
and second degree murder without a firearm carried the same po-
tential life sentence that the court imposed”—fails for two reasons.
First, it ignores the difference between a mandatory sentence and
a maximum sentence. Second, it improperly relies on a benefit of
hindsight—knowledge of the sentence imposed—to criticize coun-
sel’s decision. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689 (holding that courts
must “evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the
time”).
Carey’s counsel knew that the jury would be instructed on
second-degree murder with the firearm enhancement, as the pros-
ecution requested. Ordinarily, second-degree murder is a first-de-
gree felony with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. FLA.
STAT. § 782.04(2). But if the jury had determined that the firearm
enhancement and reclassification statute applied, then that first-de-
gree felony would have been reclassified as a life felony—meaning
that instead of a possible life sentence, Carey would have faced a
certain life sentence. See id. §§ 775.087(1)(a), 775.082(3)(a)(3). The
difference between mandatory life imprisonment and possible life
imprisonment is not an illusory benefit. And that the Supreme
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Court later limited the application of mandatory life sentences to
juvenile offenders in Miller—resulting in Carey’s reduced sen-
tence—does not affect the inquiry because Carey’s trial counsel
could not have been expected to anticipate that ruling. Further-
more, although Carey argued that his young age at the time of his
crimes altered his sentencing exposure, Florida’s youthful-offender
provision in fact supplies an additional basis to find that trial coun-
sel’s request was reasonable. If Carey had been convicted of sec-
ond-degree murder with the firearm enhancement and reclassifica-
tion, that life felony conviction would have made him ineligible for
youthful-offender consideration. See FLA. STAT. § 958.04(1)(c).
Carey again relies on hindsight to argue that because the
jury convicted him of second-degree murder and robbery instead
of greater offenses, the prosecution must have failed to prove be-
yond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty of any greater offenses.
In other words, he argues that he would have been better off if the
jury were forced either to convict him of second-degree murder
with the firearm enhancement and reclassification or to acquit him
entirely. An “all-or-nothing” strategy may make sense in theory,
but the Supreme Court has acknowledged that there is a “substan-
tial risk that the jury’s practice will diverge from theory” and the
jury will likely “resolve its doubts in favor of conviction.” Beck v.
Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 634 (1980) (quoting Keeble v. United States,
412 U.S. 205, 212–13 (1973)). So, defendants can benefit from jury
instructions on lesser included offenses. Id. at 633.
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Counsel could not have known with certainty what the out-
come would be. It was reasonable to afford the jury “a less drastic
alternative.” Id. And although we must assume when considering
prejudice that the “jury acted according to law,” that assumption
does not apply to reviewing counsel’s performance. Strickland, 466
U.S. at 694–95. A jury’s “whimsy” or “unusual propensities toward
harshness or leniency” “may actually have entered into counsel’s
selection of strategies and . . . may thus affect the performance in-
quiry.” Id. at 695.
B. Carey’s Insufficient-Evidence Claim Is Barred.
Subject to certain exceptions, an application for a federal
writ of habeas corpus must be denied if the applicant has not “ex-
hausted the remedies available in the courts of the State.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(b)(1)(A). And if the state courts deny the claim based on a
state procedural rule that is independent of federal law, the claim
is procedurally defaulted and federal courts ordinarily cannot grant
relief. See Mason v. Allen, 605 F.3d 1114, 1119 (11th Cir. 2010). The
district court found that the insufficient-evidence claim was proce-
durally barred. It determined that the state court relied on two state
procedural rules to deny Carey’s claims: timeliness and successive-
ness. It found that the state court’s decision that the motion was
untimely was not an adequate basis to deny the motion because
the claim was in fact timely under state law. But the state court’s
decision that the motion was impermissibly successive was an ade-
quate and independent state ground to deny relief. And Carey did
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14 Opinion of the Court 20-14602
not argue that an exception allowed federal review of the claim de-
spite the procedural default.
The Department does not dispute that timeliness was an in-
adequate basis to deny the Rule 3.850 motion. And Carey does not
deny that the rule against successive motions could serve as an ad-
equate and independent state ground for denying relief; instead, he
argues that the state court did not rely on that rule when it denied
his motion. So, the issue is whether the state court in fact relied on
the rule against successive motions when it denied relief.
Because the Florida District Court of Appeal, the last state
court to consider Carey’s insufficient-evidence claim, summarily
affirmed the denial, we must “look through” that unexplained de-
cision “to the last related state-court decision that does provide a
relevant rationale.” Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018).
That last reasoned state-court decision was issued by the trial court,
which denied Carey’s motion “for the reasons contained in the
State’s Response . . . incorporated herein by reference.” So, we
must examine the State’s response to Carey’s third Rule 3.850 mo-
tion to determine whether the motion was denied as impermissibly
successive.
We hold that the State’s response—and the court decision
incorporating it by reference—relied on successiveness as a ground
to deny relief. The State argued that Carey “ha[d] not shown good
cause why these new claims could not have been raised in his prior
timely motion.” The requirement of “good cause” is relevant only
to determining whether a motion is impermissibly successive, not
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20-14602 Opinion of the Court 15
to whether it is timely. Compare FLA. R. CRIM. P. 3.850(h) (stating
that a court may dismiss a second or successive motion if new
grounds are alleged and the judge finds that “there was no good
cause for the failure of the defendant . . . to have asserted those
grounds in a prior motion”) with FLA. R. CRIM. P. 3.850(b) (govern-
ing time limitations, without mention of “good cause”).
Carey argues that we should construe this portion of the
State’s response as an argument based on timeliness, not succes-
siveness. He correctly points out that the State’s response cited
Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(f) in support of its argu-
ment and that Rule 3.850(f), now and at the time the State re-
sponded in 2016, governs the disposition of a motion based on con-
sideration of factors that include timeliness but not successiveness.
See FLA. R. CRIM. P. 3.850(f). Rule 3.850(h) restricts successive mo-
tions. But Rule 3.850(f) used to govern successive motions and was
redesignated as Rule 3.850(h) in 2013. See In re Amends. to Fla.
Rules of Crim. Proc., 132 So. 3d 734, 738 (Fla. 2013). And because
the substance of the State’s argument about “good cause” aligns
with the rule on successiveness—3.850(h)—and has no relation to
current Rule 3.850(f) or to Rule 3.850(b), which governs timeliness,
we agree with the district court that the State’s response relied on
successiveness.
Carey also argues that the state court was required “to make
a ‘plain statement’ that [its] decision ‘rest[ed] on adequate and in-
dependent state grounds,” quoting Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S.
1032, 1042 (1983), but he misreads Long. As the Supreme Court
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16 Opinion of the Court 20-14602
clarified in Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 735–36 (1991), the
“plain statement” requirement comes into play only when a state-
court decision refers to both state law and federal law and it is un-
clear whether the state-law ground was an independent basis for
the decision. The State’s response—and, by extension, the state
court’s decision—refers only to Florida law. Because the response
does not refer at all to federal law, it is already “clear from the opin-
ion itself that the state court relied upon” state grounds and not
federal grounds when it denied relief. Long, 463 U.S. at 1042.
IV. CONCLUSION
We AFFIRM the denial of Carey’s petition.