Please E-mail suggested additions, comments and/or corrections to Kent@MoreLaw.Com.
Date: 03-14-2022
Case Style:
Case Number: 19-13524
Judge: Tjoflat
Court: United States Court of Appeals from the Eleventh Circuit on appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
Plaintiff's Attorney: Keith J. Harrison, Vincent John Galluzzo, Mark E. Oliver, Robert T. Rhoad
Defendant's Attorney: Florida Attorney General's Office
Description: Tampa, Florida criminal defense appellate lawyers represented Plaintiff who sued the State of Florida seeking a writ of habeas corpus setting aside his conviction for murder, armed robbery and kidnapping with bodily injury.
The power of the federal courts to grant a writ of habeas corpus setting aside a state prisoner's conviction on a claim that his conviction was obtained in violation of the United States Constitution is strictly circumscribed. First, the prisoner must have exhausted his state remedies. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A). He presented the claim to the state courts, and they denied it on the merits. Second, the federal court may not grant the writ on an exhausted claim unless it finds that the state courts' adjudication of the claim "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), or "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding," 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). Additionally, factual findings made by state courts are presumed correct until rebutted by "clear and convincing evidence." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). Finally, the federal court may only consider the merits of an unexhausted claim if the prisoner establishes "cause and prejudice" for his failure to exhaust, Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 129, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 1573 (1982), or that he is "actually innocent" of the crime for which he was convicted. Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 495-96, 106 S.Ct. 2639, 2646-49 (1986).
In this case, Crosley Alexander Green, a state prisoner, petitioned the District Court for a writ of habeas corpus vacating his convictions for murder, armed robbery, and kidnapping with bodily injury. His petition presented nineteen constitutional claims. Most had not been exhausted. The Court granted the writ on an unexhausted claim and denied the writ on the rest. The State appeals the granting of the writ, and we reverse. The prisoner cross-appeals the Court's denial of the writ on six of the claims, and we affirm.
At approximately 10:00 p.m. on April 3, 1989, in the rural part of Brevard County, Florida, Charles "Chip" Flynn Jr., age twenty-one, went to visit his on-again, off-again girlfriend Kim Hal-lock, age nineteen. About an hour later after watching a movie, they decided to go for a drive in Flynn's pick-up truck. Around 11:25 p.m., the two ended up in a secluded area of Holder Park next to some sand dunes. Flynn parked his truck there, and he and Hal-lock smoked marijuana and discussed the nature of their relationship.
Hallock and Flynn had been seeing each other for about a year and a half. And while they had once gone steady, their relationship was now an open one. Not only was Flynn seeing Hallock, he was involved with other women as well, including a Patti Larney.
As Hallock and Flynn smoked and discussed their relationship, a sheriff's car drove by but continued on without stopping.[2]Almost immediately after the car passed, a black male approached Flynn's truck and warned Hallock and Flynn, both white, to watch out for police. The man then disappeared into the darkness.
A few minutes later, Flynn, barefoot, got out of the truck to relieve himself. He immediately found himself face to face with the same black male as before, who was now holding a handgun.
Hallock heard Flynn say nervously, "Hold on. Wait a minute, man. Hold on. Put it down." At that point, she retrieved Flynn's handgun from the glove box beneath the dashboard and hid it under a pair of jeans lying next to her on the truck's seat. The man ordered Flynn to his knees and demanded at gunpoint that Hallock and Flynn give him any money they had. Hallock gave the man five dollars, but Flynn insisted that he had no money.
The man told Hallock to give him a shoelace from one of Flynn's shoes, which were on the floorboard on the driver's side of the truck, and then used the shoelace to tie Flynn's hands behind his back. While tying Flynn's hands, the man accidentally discharged his weapon, but no one was injured. At this point, the man noticed that Flynn had a wallet in his back pocket. He pulled it out, threw it to Hallock, and told her to count the money it contained. It amounted to $185.
The man ordered Hallock to start the truck and forced Flynn to get in and sit next to the passenger door. Then, he got in and positioned himself behind the steering wheel. Hallock sat between the man and Flynn. The man drove east on Parrish Road across U.S. 1 until he reached Hammock Road, all the while holding a gun to Hallock's side. At Hammock Road, the man turned left and drove north 200 to 300 yards before pulling into a remote orange
grove adjacent to Indian River Lagoon[3] and approximately 2.5 miles from Holder Park.
After coming to a stop in the orange grove, the man pulled Hallock out of the truck. Hallock broke free of the man's grip and tried to run away. While the man was regaining control of her, Flynn, with his hands still tied behind his back, grabbed the handgun Hallock had hidden beneath the pair of jeans and exited the truck on the passenger side. He fell to the ground in the process and attempted to shoot at the man. When the man turned his attention to Flynn, Hallock jumped in the truck and drove off. She heard gun shots as she fled.
Hallock headed south back down Hammock Road to Jay Jay Road and took Jay Jay Road west to U.S. 1. Once on U.S. 1, she headed south for about half a mile to LaGrange Road, at which point she turned right and proceeded to Flynn's best friend David Stroup's house trailer. In driving there, she chose not to stop at houses along the way, to proceed on to a hospital located nearby on U.S. 1, or to go to her parent's home.[4] From Stroup's trailer, Hallock called 911 and reached the communications center at the Sheriff's Office.
B.
The communications center documented the 911 call at 1:11 a.m. on April 4, 1989. The caller identified herself as Kim Hallock. She stated that a black guy had pulled a gun on her and her boyfriend and "took us somewhere" in the woods "off of Jay Jay Road." She said this was "all I know . . . but I know how to get there." The operator advised her to "just stay right there . . . and we'll have a deputy come out and then he'll take you out to where . . . this is at." At 1:12 a.m., Sergeant Diane Clarke and Deputy Mark Rixey, driving separate patrol cars, responded to the call.[5] The communications center dispatcher initially sent them to the corner of Jay Jay Road and U.S. 1, but on arriving there, they saw nothing of significance. They requested further direction from the dispatcher, who sent them east on Jay Jay Road.
Deputy Wade Walker was dispatched to Hallock's location at the trailer park. He arrived at around 1:30 a.m. By that time, Hallock had called her mother, who told her not to leave until she got there. Walker advised Hallock to wait on her mother, delaying them about two minutes. In the meantime, Clarke and Rixey had been unable to find the orange grove and were requesting additional directions. Walker and Hallock met up with Clarke and Rixey and Hallock directed them to Flynn. Upon arriving at the orange grove, Clarke and Rixey parked their patrol cars and proceeded on foot. Walker stayed behind with Hallock.
At 1:42 a.m., Clarke and Rixey found Flynn lying face down, covered in blood, with his arms tied behind his back. His loaded .22-caliber revolver was a few feet away. After untying Flynn's hands, they repeatedly asked Flynn what had happened. His sole response was, "Get me out of here. I want to go home."
Clarke had the dispatcher send a rescue unit to the scene and with Rixey attempted to staunch the bleeding. But they were unable to locate its source, a single gunshot wound in the chest. They initiated a breathing exercise twice while awaiting the rescue unit's arrival. Unfortunately, by the time it arrived, at 1:57 a.m., Flynn had succumbed.[6]
Clarke and Rixey remained on site until Agent Debbie Demers, [7] a criminalist, and Agent Scott Nyquist, [8] a homicide investigator, arrived and assumed control of the crime scene. At no point before or after their arrival did Clarke or Rixey see or speak with Hallock, who stayed in Deputy Walker's patrol car with Walker a good distance from the spot where Flynn's body was found. Once Clarke and Rixey left the scene, neither had any further involvement in the homicide investigation.
Walker took Hallock to the North Precinct station of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office in Titusville for questioning. Agent Nyquist interviewed Hallock at around 4:45 a.m., and in a tape-recorded statement she related what had transpired while she was with Flynn. About two hours later, Sergeant Tom Fair, [9] having obtained from the Homicide Unit a box of sixty to seventy mug shot photographs of black males, showed the photographs to Hal-lock to see if she could identify the individual who had assaulted her and Flynn. She was unable to identify his photograph.
Meanwhile, at 5:10 a.m., Deputy O'Dell Kiser, the Sheriff's Office canine officer, and his dog, Czar, were called to the area in Holder Park where Flynn had purportedly parked his truck.[10]Agents Debbie Demers, Barry Liford, and Randy Arieux of the Sheriff's Office Criminalistics Unit were there to meet him. They directed Kiser's attention to some visible footprints. The footprints were "fresh," made by "some type of tennis shoe." Kiser put Czar on the footprints and "told him to track."[11] The footprints were "headed north." Kiser could "tell [that] by the point of the shoe." But he and Czar went "the opposite way of the track," "south on Glendale Boulevard . . . for probably 200 yards," where the "road turns from dirt to pavement, "[12] toward Briarcliff Way. Czar turned right on to Briarcliff Way and "continued west on Briarcliff to a house . . . on the northeast corner of the intersection of Briarcliff and Belvedere." Czar stopped "in the front yard" of the house. They stopped there because two dogs in the carport "started barking." The address for the house was 3658 Briarcliff Way. Two days later, on April 6, Celestine Peterkin, Green's older sister, questioned and said that the house was her residence and that Green "stayed [there] some of the time."[13]
Kiser had Czar run a "second track." Czar started with the former scent, the one picked up at the spot where the first track began, and "went around the baseball fields." That track ended where the first track began.
Shortly after 6:00 a.m. on April 4, Hallock, still at the North Precinct station, met with a police sketch artist who created a composite of the man she and Flynn had encountered at Holder Park. She told the sketch artist that the man "had a wide nose like a flaring nose . . . . His eyes were not big but not small . . . . His lips weren't big." She further described him as wearing "a green like army jacket, jeans, and shoes like a work boot because it was heavy."
The next day, April 5, Florida Today, the major daily newspaper serving Brevard County, reported on the Flynn homicide in its morning edition. The report included a description of the alleged assailant and the composite the sketch artist had created of his face.[14] Dale Carlisle read the report, concluded that the composite sketch was of Crosley Green, and called the Brevard County Sheriff's Office with the following information. He, his wife, and his children had visited Holder Park on the evening of April 3 to watch a baseball game. While there, he saw a man he thought he knew from junior high school days. His nickname back then was Papa Green. So, he approached the man and asked him whether he was "Papa Green." The man replied that he was.[15]
Willie B. Hampton, formerly an auxiliary police officer with the Titusville Police Department, also read the Florida Today April 5 report on the Flynn homicide. He recognized the individual in the artist's sketch and contacted the Brevard County Sheriff's Office to relate what he had observed on the evening of April 3 at Holder Park. At the time, he was umpiring Little League games and saw Crosley Green standing outside the fence watching a game. He recognized Green because he had known Green and his family, his brothers, sisters, and mother, for years. Green stood there behind the fence for the whole game, until it ended at around 10:00 p.m.
Hallock was summoned to the North Precinct station late in the evening of April 5. Her father, Robert Hallock, accompanied her. Sergeant Fair had Agent Nyquist put a photographic lineup together. It contained the photographs of "six black males of similar physical characteristics . . . numbered 1 through 6." Fair told Hallock that one of the photographs "may or may not [be] of the individual who had done these things." She identified the
photograph in position No. 2 as being the individual who had kidnapped her and shot Flynn. No. 2 was a photograph of Crosley Green.[16]
After Hallock identified Green as the assailant, a warrant was obtained for his arrest. On June 8, 1989, he was found in the Town of Mims and taken into custody.
C.
On June 20, 1989, a grand jury returned an indictment to the Circuit Court of Broward County charging Green with first-degree felony murder (Count I), a capital crime, robbery with a firearm (Counts II and III), and kidnapping (Counts IV and V).[17] At arraignment, Green pled not guilty to all counts. The prosecutor subsequently notified Green that the State would seek the death penalty on Count I. This required the Circuit Court to conduct Green's trial in two phases, a guilt-innocence phase and a penalty phase.
After months of discovery, [18] the Circuit Court set the case for trial to begin on August 27, 1990. It started on schedule.
1.
In the guilt-innocence phase, the State established the facts presented in subparts A and B, supra, with evidentiary exhibits, witnesses Agent Nyquist and his team identified prior to Green's indictment, and three individuals the team uncovered as their investigation progressed. These three individuals were Sheila Green, Lonnie Hillery, and Jerome Murray; each testified that Green had confessed to killing Flynn.
Sheila Green[19] said Green was "my oldest brother." The day after Flynn's murder, she was with Green at her sister Celestine Peterkin's house at 3658 Briarcliff Way in Mims. The "rumor was out" that Green had killed Flynn. She asked him if he "did kill that dude." He said he "didn't intentionally make it happen that way," that "the dude pulled the gun . . . and motioned for the . . . the girl to run for help." "He said he went struggling with the dude. It was him or either the dude, [sic] but the dude had the gun."
Lonnie Hillery, Sheila Green's boyfriend and the father of two of her children, saw Green in the early morning hours of April 4, 1989, in a field by the government housing project located "by [Green's] 'grandfather's barbecue stand.'" Hillery, who knew "Papa" Green, said he seemed "shaky" and "scared," "like he was high on something," and he was dirty, "like really scuffed up like, you know, like he'd been in the dirt or something." When he asked Green what was wrong, Green said, "I fucked up, man. I fucked up." "Man, some people came through and was trying to buy something from [me] and they tried to get [me], and [I] just fucked up." "[I]t was a man and woman." "He said they tried to get him, they hustled a little bit and the girl took off and that's where he fucked up." A few days later, Green told Hillery that he had gotten rid of his clothes and that everything was going to be all right.
Jerome Murray was in Mims one afternoon standing and talking with twenty or thirty "cocaine heads" on a street corner. Murray was drunk. At some point, Green "came and said he just killed a man." Green said, "I'm going to disappear" but nothing else. Murray added: "I heard what he said, and then I read it in the paper the next day, but the description didn't fit it until another paper came out and then had his name underneath of it."
After presenting evidence sufficient to establish the facts stated in subparts A and B, the State rested its case in chief. Green moved for a directed verdict and made multiple motions for mis-trial.[20] The Court denied the motions.
Green's attorney called five witnesses to testify in Green's defense: Terrell Kingery, Charles Smith, Brenda Harper, James Carn, and Celestine Peterkin. Kingery, the first called, was an expert in the "field of shoe and tire impressions." He testified that he had examined four of the plaster casts that had been made (at the Sheriff's Office request) of foot impressions Deputy Kiser had observed while Czar was following the scent in the Holder Park area. According to Kingery, all four impressions were of tennis shoes of "a size ten and not larger than a size twelve." The impressions were made of several named brands, perhaps more than ten.
Charles Smith was the "Chief Umpire" at the Holder Park baseball fields. He was at the Park umpiring a game in the evening of April 3, 1989. Green was there too.[21] Smith umpired a game and visited with Green "between innings, and . . . talked to him after the game." Green "was wearing tennis shoes." He was "sure" that Green wasn't wearing "any kind of field jacket or army jacket." Before Smith left Holder Park "a few minutes after 9:00," Green asked him for money. "It was probably more than $2."
Brenda Harper lived across the street from Hallock. Hallock came to her house on April 4 at around 11:00 a.m. on Hallock's way home from the Sheriff's office. Harper said Hallock "had a grass stain, dirt, right here on her shirt" and then indicated where the stain was located.
James Carn, a maintenance mechanic, was employed by North Hydro in Rockledge, Florida. On April 3, 1989, he got off work at 11:00 p.m. and went to Carleen Brothers' house in Mims. Carn was seeing Brothers, a cousin of Green's, at the time. When he arrived at 11:50 p.m., he discovered that another man was in the house. An argument ensued and the man left. At that point, Brothers, followed by Carn, went across the street to a "friend's house, Aretha's," arriving "at about 12:10 or 12:15." They stayed there "another ten or fifteen minutes, and arrived back at Brothers' house around 12:30 p.m." "About five or ten minutes after that that's when Papa came to the door . . . . Mr. Green." He entered and stayed, "sitting there with us watching TV" for a while. Then Carn went to bed, at "about [a] quarter to 2:00." Between Green's arrival at Brothers' house and "about [a] quarter to 2:00," Green was with Carn "the entire time."[22]
Celestine Peterkin testified that when she visited her younger sister Sheila Green in prison, Sheila never told her that Green admitted to killing Flynn. Sheila was in prison pending sentencing for cocaine distribution.[23] Peterkin said Sheila loved her kids and "would do anything to be with her kids." Peterkin told the police on April 6, 1989, that Green "was living with [her] and her cousin in Mims, Carleen."
The defense rested after Peterkin testified. The State, in rebuttal, called one witness, Agent Nyquist. He testified that on April 5, 1989, in an article about the Flynn murder, Florida Today published the artist's sketch of Hallock's description of the murder suspect. The sketch had been made at around 6:00 a.m. The
newspaper ran a second story the next day, and it contained a photo of Green's face.
Nyquist was asked about the distance between the orange grove where Flynn was found and Brothers' house in Mims. He said it was 1.5 miles. On cross-examination by defense counsel, he was asked about the distance between Holder Park and the orange grove and how long it took to drive it. He said the distance was 2.9 miles, and he drove it in five to six minutes.
Green presented no surrebuttal, and following a charge conference with the Court, the parties delivered their closing arguments to the jury. The State's first chair, Christopher White, delivered the State's opening argument. It was relatively brief. White summarized what the evidence disclosed-namely, the facts recited in subparts A and B-and asked the jury to return a verdict of guilty on all charges.
John Parker responded for the defense. His strategy was to focus on the holes he saw in the State's case. He claimed that the problems with Hallock's story began with the fact that she was under the influence of marijuana the night of the murder-something she initially lied about to police. Add to that the fact that it was pitch black that night-with no artificial lighting in the park (and potentially no interior light on in the truck)[24]-and it became practically impossible for her to have gotten a "good look, as the State would have [the jury] believe, at [the] man who committed" the crimes.
Parker reminded the jury that Hallock initially told police that the first time she saw the black man he was a "blur." And when the police asked whether the man had any facial hair, Hallock responded that she was "not really sure." She, in her own words, "didn't even get a good look at him" because she was "really scared."
He argued that Hallock was simply "relying on what the police told her." When showing Hallock the photo line-up, the police informed her that their suspect's photograph was one of the photos. Once she picked Green, they confirmed that she had picked the right person. Then, after the line-up, Hallock read all of the newspaper articles, some of which contained Green's name and photograph, and saw Green on a trip to the Brevard County Jail for school. So, Parker argued that while Hallock believed Green committed the crime, this belief was based not on her own observation but on her having seen his picture in the paper and having been told by the police that he was the suspect.
Parker claimed that Hallock was likely drawn to Green's photograph in the line-up because Green had the darkest skin color in the line-up. It was also possible that Green's photograph was the only new image she was shown. The loose box of photographs had vanished, so for all they knew, Hallock could have already seen photos of the five other men and concluded they were not the kidnapper. Plus, Hallock was, at first, only "pretty positive" Green
was the perpetrator. It was not until police repeatedly asked whether she was sure that she confirmed that it was him. In Parker's mind, when you keep being asked if you are sure, "sooner or later you get the message."
He also suggested that none of the witnesses to whom Green allegedly confessed, or who supposedly saw Green at the ballpark in a green army jacket, could be trusted. Jerome Murray's timing of events did not line up; he claimed that Green confessed to him at 10:30 p.m., several hours before the kidnapping and murder. Murray was also "wasted," having consumed two six-packs of sixteen-ounce malt liquor before speaking with Green. The prosecutor also spoke to a judge on Murray's behalf, getting Murray out of jail once after he was arrested.
Parker also reminded the jury that Sheila Green was facing many years in prison on federal drug charges during which she would be separated from her four children. Parker claimed that she did not come forward on her own before she was convicted, and she never told her sister Celestine Peterkin that her brother had confessed to killing someone. What's more, Peterkin testified that Sheila did not even live in Mims during the time she supposedly heard this "tale" at Peterkin's house.
Nor did Lonnie Hillery, Sheila's lover and the father of two of her children, come forward originally. Parker asked the jury to think about what he would be willing to say to keep Sheila from going to prison.[25]
Parker further argued that Green's appearance did not match Hallock's description of the assailant on the night of Flynn's murder. Dale Carlisle, who before the baseball game had not seen Green since the ninth grade, claimed Green had short, cropped hair the day of the murder. Parker pointed out that this contrasted with Green's hair at the time of the offense, [26] his hair in the photo lineup, and Hallock's description of the man's hair at her deposition: greasy hair with a sort of sheen or perm. Carlisle also said Green was wearing desert boots or casual-type wear, not the heavy work boots Hallock described.
Willie Hampton, in his initial statement to the police, said Green was wearing some sort of garment but not a field jacket. At the time, he could not remember if it was black or blue. Parker claimed it was only the newspaper article that "refreshed" Hampton's memory.
Green's witness, Charles Smith, on the other hand, said Green was not wearing an army jacket and that he was wearing tennis shoes. Furthermore, James Carn testified that Green was with him at the time of the murder. Contrary to the State's claim that Carn might be mis-remembering which night he saw Green- Carn did not come forward until a year later-Parker argued that Carn remembered the night he saw Green because of the argument at Brothers' house.
Parker also argued that it was impossible to know how Czar tracked to Peterkin's house. The scent of other animals or humans could have disturbed the track, and the smell of the dogs at Peter-kin's home could have attracted Czar. The police also neglected to have Czar attempt to track the individual or individuals who made additional prints at the Holder Park scene.
In the end, Parker highlighted a litany of facts which he believed pointed to Hallock as the killer, not Green: Flynn's hands were tied "for comfort" rather than security; Hallock was allegedly jerked from the truck more than once but had no injuries; her left handprint and fingerprints were all over the truck, but Green's were not; Hallock initially told police she did not know where the perpetrator was when she fled but later claimed she saw the man poised to shoot as she drove away; Hallock was consistently able to escape the armed kidnapper's grasp without getting shot; there were no tracks in the grove, which would indicate the black man fled on foot; Flynn failed to identify the shooter when asked, repeating only "I want to go home. Just get me out of here"; the handgun Flynn supposedly fired was found four to five feet away from him; Flynn suffered an injury to his right rear thigh, consistent with someone dragging him headfirst; Hallock drove to Flynn's best friend's house to get help, not her parent's house, or the
hospital on U.S. 1; miraculously, no one was injured when the gun discharged while the man was tying Flynn's hands behind his back; Flynn was sleeping with another woman at the same time as Hal-lock, and Hallock was not happy about it; the bullet that killed Flynn could have come from his own gun; and the truck's glove box was broken, causing it to dump its contents on the floor when opened, yet the perpetrator somehow did not notice when Hallock opened it and removed Flynn's gun. While he never explicitly named Hallock as the killer, Parker left the firm impression with the jury that, in his mind, she was the culprit.
Philip Williams, the State's second chair, gave the State's rebuttal. He focused on what the State considered to be Green's real defense-that Hallock, "a jealous lover," did the killing. Except that Parker would not come right out and say it. Parker "alluded to the fact that the killer . . . may have been Kim Hallock." So, Williams asked, "why wouldn't Parker just say it?" The answer: "He wouldn't because it's ludicrous, and he doesn't have the courage just to come right out and say it. I think she killed" Flynn. Parker, he said, was just "grasping at straws."
Williams accused Parker of misrepresenting Hallock's testimony about the alleged encounter with Green. So, he proceeded to review Hallock's testimony about it in detail. Then, he turned to Czar's tracking of the footprints to Peterkin's house on Briarcliff Way, where Green lived according to his sister, Sheila. From there, it was only a "quarter of a mile by foot on a road . . . up to the dunes" where Flynn parked his pickup truck.
Williams explained the absence of Green's fingerprints on Flynn's truck. "They couldn't [even] find the prints of the guy who owned the truck," he said. Finally, to rebut Parker's criticism of Hallock's identification of Green based on her observations of him that night, Williams walked the jury through her testimony.
Williams closed by reminding the jury of the damning testimony of Sheila Green, Lonnie Hillery, and Jerome Murray, and asked the jury to use its common sense.
2.
At the end of the guilt-innocence phase, the jury found Green guilty of all charges. The penalty phase on the trial of Count I followed. The State introduced proof that Green had been convicted of armed robbery in New York in 1977 and urged the jury to recommend a death sentence based on four aggravating factors: (1) Green was previously convicted of a violent felony; (2) the capital felony was committed while Green was engaged in kidnapping; (3) the murder was committed for pecuniary gain; and (4) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel. With that, the State rested.
Green's defense was brief. Parker called two witnesses, Shirley and Damon Jones. They testified about Green's upbringing in a dysfunctional family. When Green was in prison in New York, his father shot and killed his mother before committing suicide; this tragedy had a devastating effect on Green.
The jury recommended the imposition of a death sentence by a vote of eight to four, and the Circuit Judge imposed the sentence after finding the aggravating factors listed by the State and no statutory or non-statutory mitigating factors. Green v. State (Green I), 641 So.2d 391, 395-96 (Fla. 1994).
Green v. Sec'y, Dep't of Corrs. (11th Cir. 2022)
Outcome: Crosley Green, a 65-year-old Florida grandfather who spent nearly half his life in prison for a murder he says he didn't commit, returned to custody on Monday even though a judge ruled that he'd been wrongfully convicted. He spent his last days of freedom spending time with his fiancée and attending church services.
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: