Victor Tony Jones v. State of Florida

Supreme Court of Florida
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No. SC15-1549
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VICTOR TONY JONES,
Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
[September 28, 2017]
PER CURIAM.
Victor Tony Jones, a prisoner under sentence of death, appeals the circuit
court’s order summarily denying his fourth successive motion for postconviction
relief, which was filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. We have
jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.
We previously affirmed Jones’s convictions and sentences of death on direct
appeal. Jones v. State, 652 So. 2d 346, 353 (Fla. 1995). We affirmed the denial of
his initial motion for postconviction relief and denied his petition for a writ of
habeas corpus. Jones v. State, 855 So. 2d 611, 619 (Fla. 2003). We affirmed the
denial of his first and second successive motions for postconviction relief and the
circuit court’s determination that he is not intellectually disabled. Jones v. State,
93 So. 3d 178, 178 (Fla. 2012); Jones v. State, 966 So. 2d 319, 330 (Fla. 2007).
The appeal of the denial of his third successive motion for postconviction relief
was voluntarily dismissed. Jones v. State, 135 So. 3d 287 (Fla. 2014) (table).
Jones filed his fourth successive motion for postconviction relief on May 26,
2015, seeking a new determination of his claim that he is ineligible for the death
penalty due to intellectual disability in light of the recent decision of the United
States Supreme Court in Hall v. Florida, 134 S. Ct. 1986 (2014). The circuit court
summarily denied the motion on June 18, 2015, concluding that Jones is not
entitled to relief under Hall because he had a full and complete evidentiary hearing
that lasted several days, during which he presented evidence regarding all three
prongs of the intellectual disability standard yet failed to establish that he met any
of the three prongs. This appeal follows.
“[T]he term ‘intellectually disabled’ or ‘intellectual disability’ means
significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with
deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the period from conception to
age 18.” § 921.137(1), Fla. Stat. (2015). “Significantly subaverage general
intellectual functioning” is defined as “performance that is two or more standard
deviations from the mean score on a standardized intelligence test specified in the
rules of the Agency for Persons with Disabilities.” Id. “Adaptive behavior”
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“means the effectiveness or degree with which an individual meets the standards of
personal independence and social responsibility expected of his or her age, cultural
group, and community.” Id.
In Hall, the Supreme Court held that Florida’s interpretation of section
921.137(1) as establishing a strict IQ test score cutoff of 70 “creates an
unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed, and thus
is unconstitutional.” 134 S. Ct. at 1990. The Court further held that when
assessing the subaverage intellectual functioning prong of the intellectual disability
standard, courts must take into account the standard error of measurement of IQ
tests. Id. at 2001. And “when a defendant’s IQ test score falls within the test’s
acknowledged and inherent margin of error, the defendant must be able to present
additional evidence of intellectual disability, including testimony regarding
adaptive deficits.” Id. Hall also held that an intellectual disability determination is
a “conjunctive and interrelated assessment” such that no single factor can be
considered dispositive. Id.; see also Oats v. State, 181 So. 3d 457, 467-68 (Fla.
2015) (“[A]s the Supreme Court has now recognized, because these factors are
interdependent, if one of the prongs is relatively less strong, a finding of
intellectual disability may still be warranted based on the strength of other prongs.”
(citing Hall, 134 S. Ct. at 2001)). Although we held that “Hall warrants retroactive
application as a development of fundamental significance,” Walls v. State, 213 So.
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3d 340, 346 (Fla. 2016), petition for cert. filed, No. 16-1518 (U.S. May 10, 2017),
we conclude that under the circumstances presented in this case, Jones is not
entitled to relief under Hall.
When the trial court considered Jones’s first successive motion for
postconviction relief and intellectual disability claim in 2006, it permitted Jones to
present evidence regarding all three prongs of the intellectual disability standard.
The trial court concluded that Jones was not intellectually disabled and “did not
meet even one of the three statutory requirements for [intellectual disability].”
Jones, 966 So. 2d at 325.
Jones argues that he is entitled to relief under Hall because the IQ scores that
were presented to the trial court in 2006 fall within the tests’ acknowledged and
inherent margins of error—which Hall requires courts to take into account—and he
is therefore entitled to present additional evidence of intellectual disability. Jones
is correct that in light of Hall, he would likely now meet the first prong of the
intellectual disability standard—significantly subaverage general intellectual
functioning. But as we noted in 2007, each of the IQ tests in this case was
administered after Jones was shot in the head during the commission of the
murders. There was testimony in 2006 that Jones’s intelligence was probably
higher before the head injury. Even Jones’s expert testified that the head injury
“result[ed] in impairment of Jones’s ability to concentrate and remain focused, and
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negatively affect[ed] his perceptual processes.” Id. at 329. Jones is not entitled to
a new hearing in order to present additional evidence of intellectual disability
because he was already provided the opportunity to present evidence regarding
each of the three prongs of the intellectual disability standard in 2006, and Hall
does not change the fact that Jones failed to establish that he meets the second or
third prong. As we have recently reiterated, “If the defendant fails to prove any
one of these components, the defendant will not be found to be intellectually
disabled.” Wright v. State, 213 So. 3d 881, 895 (Fla. 2017); Salazar v. State, 188
So. 3d 799, 812 (Fla. 2016); see also Wright, 213 So. 3d at 898 (holding that
Wright failed to prove that he is of subaverage intellectual functioning and “[f]or
this reason alone, Wright does not qualify as intellectually disabled under Florida
law”).
Jones also asserts that the trial court in 2006 and this Court in 2007
improperly concluded that he did not meet the adaptive deficits prong because
those determinations were based on reports from corrections officers or other
observations of his functioning in prison, which are not valid indicators of adaptive
behavior. This claim is procedurally barred and meritless. We rejected this
argument in 2007, finding that the conclusion that Jones did not meet the adaptive
deficits prong was not solely based on observations of Jones’s functioning in
prison. Jones, 966 So. 2d at 327-28. Hall does not disturb the previous finding
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that Jones failed to establish that he has concurrent adaptive deficits, and Jones is
not entitled to relitigate this claim.
Finally, Jones argues that he is entitled to relief in light of another recent
United States Supreme Court decision, Hurst v. Florida, 136 S. Ct. 616 (2016).
But we have determined that Hurst is not retroactive to cases that were final before
the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S.
584 (2002). Asay v. State, 210 So. 3d 1, 11 (Fla. 2016), cert. denied, 2017 WL
1807588 (2017). Because Jones’s convictions and sentences became final in 1995,
he is not entitled to relief under Hurst.
For these reasons, we affirm the circuit court’s order denying Jones’s fourth
successive motion for postconviction relief and deny relief based on Hurst.
It is so ordered.
LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, and QUINCE, JJ., concur.
CANADY and POLSTON, JJ., concur in result.
LAWSON, J., concurs in result with an opinion.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND
IF FILED, DETERMINED.
LAWSON, J., concurring in result.
I fully agree with the majority’s explanation as to why Hall does not open
the door for Jones to relitigate his intellectual disability claim, and I concur in the
result of the majority’s decision that Jones is not entitled to Hurst relief. See
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Okafor v. State, 42 Fla. L. Weekly S639, S641, 2017 WL 2481266, at *6 (Fla. June
8, 2017) (Lawson, J., concurring specially).
An Appeal from the Circuit Court in and for Miami-Dade County,
Dennis James Murphy, Judge - Case No. 131990CF0501430001XX
Neal A. Dupree, Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, William M. Hennis III,
Litigation Director, and Nicole M. Noël, Staff Attorney, Capital Collateral
Regional Counsel, Southern Region, Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
for Appellant
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Melissa J. Roca,
Assistant Attorney General, Miami, Florida,
for Appellee
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