Florida Department of Corrections v. Shkelqim Fana

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 14-11513
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 3:11-cv-00311-BJD-JRK
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF FLORIDA,
Petitioners-Appellants,
versus
SHKELQIM FANA,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
________________________
(December 9, 2014)
Before MARTIN, JULIE CARNES, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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We have had the benefit of oral argument in this case, and have carefully
reviewed the briefs and relevant parts of the record. The district court in this case
granted relief to Fana on three grounds of his petition for writ of habeas corpus
brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The State appeals, challenging the
judgment of the district court on each of the three grounds. We address each
ground in turn.
A.
The district court held that Fana’s trial counsel rendered ineffective
assistance of counsel in failing to object to the Florida standard jury instruction on
the forcible-felony exception to self-defense. The forcible-felony instruction given
at Fana’s trial provides:
However, the use of force . . . [by Fana] is not justified if you
find . . . [that] Fana was attempting to commit, committing, or
escaping after the commission of attempted first-degree murder.
Trial Tr. at 929. Fana thereafter contended in his state post-conviction petition for
relief that trial counsel’s failure to object to the instruction constituted ineffective
assistance of counsel. The state habeas court denied the claim, stating:
The Standard Jury Instructions, as approved by the Supreme Court of
Florida, were provided to the jury in this case. In this case, the model
jury instructions were followed when instructing the jury and counsel
cannot be termed ineffective for failing to object to a standard jury
instruction which has not been invalidated at the time of a defendant’s
sentencing. Thompson v. State, 759 So. 2d 650, 665 (Fla. 2000). The
failure to object to a jury instruction, which is later found to be
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improper is not ineffective assistance. Thomas v. State, 838 So. 2d
535 (Fla. 2003).
Fana v. State, No. 16-2000-CF-4473-AXXX at *6-*7 (Fla. Cir. Ct. Jan. 15, 2010)
(emphasis added). This ruling was affirmed on appeal to the First District Court of
Appeal. Fana v. State, 54 So. 3d 492 (Fla. 1st DCA Feb. 17, 2011).
On federal habeas review, the district court acknowledged that these state
court decisions were adjudications on the merits, and thus warranted deference
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §2254(d), but it concluded that “the state courts’
adjudications of this claim involved an unreasonable application of clearly
established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.”
District Court Order, Docket 33, at 44. Yet, the actual analysis of the district court
gave no deference to these state court decisions, which had found no ineffective
assistance by trial counsel as a result of the latter’s failure to object to a standard
jury instruction that had not yet been invalidated at the time of trial; see id. at 52–
54. Nor did the district court adequately explain why these state court decisions
constituted an unreasonable application of clearly-established federal law. We
therefore conclude that the district court erred.
Applying the appropriate deference, we disagree that the state court
decisions “resulted in a decision that 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). The clearly-established
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federal law is set out in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052
(1984). See discussion infra. We find no basis to conclude that the state court
decision constituted an unreasonable application of Strickland. At the time of trial,
no Florida District Court of Appeal, including the First District Court of Appeal,
had held that the standard instruction which Fana now challenges was invalid or
that the instruction could be used only where the person claiming self-defense is
engaged in another, independent “forcible felony.” It is true that a different
District Court of Appeals, the Fourth District Court of Appeal, so held after
completion of the trial in this case. Giles v. State, 831 So. 2d 1263, 1265–66 (Fla.
4th DCA 2002).1 However, numerous decisions of this Court have construed
Strickland as not requiring counsel to make arguments based on predictions of how
the law may develop. See, e.g., Jackson v. Herring, 42 F.3d 1350, 1359 (11th Cir.
1995) (“To be effective within the bounds set by Strickland, an attorney need not
anticipate changes in the law.”); Spaziano v. Singletary, 36 F.3d 1028, 1039 (11th
Cir. 1994) (“We have held many times that reasonably effective representation
cannot and does not include a requirement to make arguments based on predictions
1
Indeed, in McGahee v. State, 600 So. 2d 9 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992), the majority had rejected
an argument articulated by the dissent which foreshadowed the Giles holding that the forcible-
felony instruction was appropriate only where the person claiming self-defense was engaged in
another, independent forcible felony. Id. at 10. Thus, as of the time of trial, not only had no case
adopted the position of the McGahee dissent (i.e., the later position of the Giles court), but there
was an on-point case in still another District Court of Appeal indicating that the instruction was
not erroneous.
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of how the law may develop.”); Funchess v. Wainwright, 772 F.2d 683, 691 (11th
Cir. 1985) (“The failure of counsel to anticipate that an otherwise valid jury
instruction would later be deemed improper by the state judiciary does not
constitute ineffective assistance of counsel.”). Accordingly, we conclude that the
state court’s rejection of Fana’s claim of trial counsel’s ineffective assistance was
not an unreasonable application of federal law.
B.
The second ground on which the district court granted habeas relief for Fana
was Fana’s claim that his appellate counsel was ineffective in failing to argue on
direct appeal that the trial court’s giving of the forcible-felony instruction
constituted fundamental error. This was Fana’s Ground 14 in the district court, and
is sometimes referred to herein as Ground 14. The district court applied de novo
review to this claim. In its brief to this Court, the State appears to have conceded
that although this claim was presented to the state courts, the latter did not rule on
it; that the claim is exhausted and free from procedural bar; and that the district
court properly exercised de novo review (i.e., gave no deference to the state court
decision). Accordingly, we likewise apply de novo review to this claim, and
address its merits.
As noted above, Fana’s trial counsel did not object to the forcible-felony
instruction. Likewise, appellate counsel did not assert on appeal that the trial court
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committed error when it gave this instruction: an omission that Fana now contends
to have constituted ineffective assistance. But, as set out above, it was not until
after conclusion of the trial in this case that a Florida court ever held that the
forcible-felony instruction is appropriate only when the person claiming self-
defense was engaged in a separate, independent forcible felony. See Giles, supra.
At the time Giles was issued, Fana’s direct appeal was pending, with Fana’s brief
having been filed several months earlier. Fana argues that once Giles had been
issued, appellate counsel should have sought leave to supplement his initial brief
on direct appeal to raise this Ground 14 as an additional issue. The district court
agreed that appellate counsel’s failure to do so constituted ineffective assistance,
and granted relief for Fana on this ground. We disagree, and reverse.
To prevail on his claim that appellate counsel was ineffective in failing to
allege that the trial court had erred by giving the standard, approved instruction on
self-defense, Fana must establish both deficient performance by appellate counsel
and prejudice. Strickland, 466 U.S. 688, 104 S. Ct. 2052. To satisfy the
performance prong of the test, Fana must show that his appellate counsel’s
representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. Id. at 687, 104
S. Ct. at 2064. To meet the prejudice prong, Fana must establish a reasonable
probability that, but for counsel’s errors, the outcome would have been different.
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Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. at 2068. “A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient
to undermine confidence in the outcome.” Id.
The district court concluded that appellate counsel performed deficiently
because he should have become aware of the Giles decision during the appeals
process and then should have sought leave to supplement his initial brief in order
to raise the erroneous jury instruction claim. We disagree that appellate counsel’s
failure to so act rendered his performance deficient under Strickland. First, even if
we assume that an appellate attorney should, during the pendency of the appeal,
continue monitoring applicable case law from the appellate court reviewing the
appeal, Fana’s appellate counsel would have never discovered Giles through such a
process. This is so because Fana’s appeal was before the First District Court of
Appeal, but Giles was a decision by a different appellate court: the Fourth District
Court of Appeal. As such, it was not binding in the First District Court of Appeal
in which Fana’s direct appeal was pending. Pardo v. State, 596 So. 2d 665, 667
(Fla. 1992) (“As between District Courts of Appeal, a sister district’s opinion is
merely persuasive.” (quoting State v. Hayes, 333 So. 2d 51, 53 (Fla. 4th DCA
1976))).
Second, even had appellate counsel happened upon the Giles decision after
filing his brief, his failure to seek leave to add a Giles claim would not necessarily
have been unreasonable. Besides the fact that, arising out of a different district
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appeals court, Giles had no precedential effect in the First District, Giles could be
readily distinguished from Fana’s case for another significant reason. That is,
Giles had objected at trial to the giving of the forcible-felony instruction; Fana had
not. Fana’s failure to object at trial meant that on appeal, merely showing error in
the instruction would have been insufficient to obtain relief. Instead, Fana would
have had to show that the giving of the forcible-felony instruction constituted
“fundamental error.” And it was not until after Fana’s conviction had been
affirmed on appeal that a Florida appellate court had held that the erroneous giving
of the forcible-felony instruction could constitute “fundamental error.” 2 See Fair
v. Crosby, 858 So. 2d 1103, 1104–05 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003), abrogation recognized
by Clark v. State, 23 So. 3d 1213, 1215 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009).
In short, on the above facts, we do not find appellate counsel’s failure to
seek to amend his appeal brief to add a Giles claim to have fallen below an
objective standard of reasonableness. But even were we to assume that it had, the
district court still erred in granting him relief, because Fana has not demonstrated
prejudice, as is required by Strickland. That is, he has not established by a
reasonable probability that, but for appellate counsel’s errors, the outcome would
2
And it was not until September 11, 2006 that the First District Court of Appeal ruled that
the giving of the forcible-felony instruction could constitute fundamental error. See Williams v.
State, 937 So. 2d 771, 774 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006). This was some three years after Fana’s
conviction had been affirmed by the above court.
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have been different. As noted, “[a] reasonable probability is a probability
sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” Supra at 7.
In addressing this prejudice prong of the analysis, the district court focused
on whether the outcome of the trial would have been different had the jury not
been given the forcible-felony instruction. The court concluded that the jury likely
would not have convicted, absent this instruction. We disagree. To explain why,
an examination of the evidence presented at trial is necessary.
Bujari, the victim of the attempted murder for which Fana was convicted,
survived and testified at Fana’s trial. He testified that he and Fana had been
friends, but had fallen out several months prior. On the night of the crime, Bujari
testified that he received twenty calls from someone who remained silent when
Bujari answered. Unable to sleep, he went to work at the bakery where he was
employed. He was alone at work, unloading the bread truck, when he turned and
saw Fana holding a knife. Fana cursed him and stabbed him in the stomach. A
struggle ensued. Fana pulled out a second knife from behind his back, and kept
stabbing Bujari. Bujari thought he blacked out at some point. After Fana left,
Bujari regained consciousness and managed to call 911. In the 911 recording,
which was played for the jury, Bujari said, “Help, I am dying,” and he identified
Fana as the one who had stabbed him with a knife and tried to kill him.
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The officers who arrived at the scene testified that they found Bujari lying
on the floor, holding his intestines, surrounded by a large amount of blood. Bujari
told the officers that Fana had attacked him and gave them his name and address.
The officers went to that address to arrest Fana. After being Mirandized, Fana
essentially confessed that he had tried to kill Bujari:
I went there to kill him because he was fucking my wife. I took two
knives and I don’t know where they are now. . . .I went over to kill
that mother fucker. Is he dead?
Trial Tr. at 458–59.
Notwithstanding this admission, at trial Fana testified that he went to the
bakery and went inside, where he saw his friend Bujari. When Fana asked how
Bujari was doing, the latter grabbed two big knives and attacked Fana. Fana
testified that he was scared and thought Bujari was trying to kill him. So, Fana
found a knife on a table and fought back to defend himself.
Besides the fact that this testimony was contradicted by Fana’s admission to
police officers that he had gone to the bakery, armed with two knives and the
intention to kill Bujari, it was likewise undermined by other testimony. As to
Fana’s testimony that he had just happened upon a knife at the bakery, Fana’s son,
Jurgen, testified that he had observed his father take knives, wrap them in a brown
paper towel, and place them in the back of his waistband before leaving the house
on the night of the attack. Jurgen identified the knives in a photograph. Moreover,
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an employee and owner of the bakery testified that the knives left at the scene were
not knives of the bakery, nor of the same type as the knives there.
As for Fana’s testimony that Bujari was the aggressor and that he, Fana, was
merely trying to protect himself from Bujari’s unprovoked attack, testimony of
medical professionals undermined that statement as well. A doctor who had
examined Bujari after the attack testified that the contents of Bujari’s abdomen
were exposed, there was damage to his lungs and liver, and there was an estimated
blood loss of up to 30%. A nurse testified that she evaluated Fana’s medical
condition on his arrival at jail. She reported that he had only superficial lacerations
on his right arm and the knuckle of his left hand, and some scratches on his face.
We conclude that with such overwhelming evidence contradicting Fana’s
claim of self-defense, there is no reasonable probability that the jury would have
reached a different verdict had the instructions not included the now-prohibited
forcible-felony language. Indeed, so inconsequential was this language to Fana’s
case that neither the prosecutor nor defense counsel ever mentioned the substance
of the instruction in either of their closing arguments. For the same reasons, we
conclude that Fana nonetheless received a fair trial and giving the forcible-felony
instruction did not constitute fundamental error under Florida law. 3 See Holiday v.
3
As noted supra at 5, we are required to review this issue de novo, because, although the
Florida First District Court of Appeal rejected Fana’s argument that appellate counsel rendered
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State, 753 So. 2d 1264, 1268–70 & n.3 (Fla. 2000) (holding that an erroneous
instruction on an affirmative defense was not fundamental error where the
defendant’s use of the defense was “tenuous” and the instruction did not otherwise
violate due process); Smith v. State, 521 So. 2d 106, 108 (Fla. 1988) (holding that
the doctrine of fundamental error should be applied only in rare cases where either
a jurisdictional error appears or where the interests of justice present a compelling
demand for its application, and concluding that an incorrect jury instruction on an
affirmative defense was not fundamental error because it was not “so flawed as to
deprive defendants claiming the defense . . . of a fair trial”).
Because we conclude that giving the forcible-felony instruction at Fana’s
trial was not fundamental error, it follows that the performance of Fana’s appellate
counsel was not constitutionally deficient. Appellate counsel could have
reasonably concluded that it would have been futile to attempt to raise an
unpreserved claim absent an ability to show that fundamental error had occurred.
Indeed, at the time of the direct appeal here, no Florida appellate court had held
that the giving of the forcible-felony instruction was a fundamental error and the
First District Court of Appeal had not even found the instruction, itself, to be
erroneous. From our conclusion that the instruction did not constitute fundamental
ineffective assistance by failing to assert error in the trial court’s giving of the forcible-felony
instruction, it did not do so on the merits of the claim, but instead summarily denied Fana’s
request to amend his habeas petition to include this ground.
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error also arises the inference that there is not a reasonable probability of a
different result on appeal, even had appellate counsel attempted to belatedly raise
this claim.
C.
Finally, the district court granted relief on Ground 13—ineffective assistance
of appellate counsel for failing to raise on direct appeal the unpreserved alleged
error in sentencing Fana on the basis of the crime of attempted second degree
murder with a deadly weapon, as opposed to the crime that he was convicted of,
attempted second degree murder with a weapon. Order at 69. The district court
concluded that appellate counsel was deficient and that Fana also satisfied the
prejudice prong of Strickland. Id. at 74. We conclude that the district court erred
in several respects. The district court reviewed the issue de novo, and failed to
afford the state court judgment the deference it was due on this issue. Moreover,
the alleged error, even if error, was unpreserved, and clearly was not fundamental
error which appellate counsel could raise. 4 Finally, the district court’s conclusion
4
Even if appellate counsel could have moved in the trial court to correct the alleged error,
and even if we entertain that possibility despite Fana not having raised it sooner, appellate
counsel clearly would not have been deficient in failing to do so for the reasons noted in the next
sentence in the text and in footnote 5.
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that the alleged error resulted in a different outcome is pure speculation. 5 We
reverse the judgment of the district court with respect to this issue.
In sum, we reverse the judgment of the district court on each of the three
claims on which the district court granted relief. The case is remanded with
instructions to enter judgment denying Fana’s petition for writ of habeas corpus.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
5
The sentencing judge tried this case and heard all of the gruesome evidence. In this case,
the knives used by Fana were not only “weapons,” they were used in a “deadly” manner. The
First District Court of Appeal considered this claim on the merits, and denied it. We agree with
the implicit ruling of that court that there is little or no likelihood that the sentencing judge would
have changed the sentence had the alleged error been pointed out; and, in any event, the First
District Court of Appeal clearly was not unreasonable in applying the Strickland standard.
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