& SC14-88 Jerone Hunter v. State of Florida and Jerone Hunter v. Julie L. Jones, etc., 175 So. 3d 699

Background

In 2004 Jerone Hunter (age 18) and co-defendants attacked occupants of a Deltona home; six victims were killed with bats. Hunter was tried with Victorino and Salas; Cannon pled guilty and testified for the State.
Hunter admitted to police he entered the house with a bat and struck victims; co-defendant Salas and physical evidence linked Hunter to the scene (shoes, bats, laces, etc.).
A jury recommended death for four murders (votes ranged from 9–3 to 10–2); the trial court found five aggravators (including HAC and CCP) and several mitigators and imposed death for four murders.
On direct appeal this Court affirmed convictions and sentences. Hunter later filed a 3.851 postconviction motion and a habeas petition; the trial court denied relief after an evidentiary hearing on some ineffective-assistance claims.
The Florida Supreme Court reviewed claims alleging ineffective assistance at penalty and guilt phases, several procedural/constitutional claims, and a habeas challenge to Florida’s nonunanimous jury recommendation rule, and affirmed denial of postconviction relief and denied habeas.

Issues

Issue	Hunter's Argument	State's Argument	Held
1) Penalty-phase IAC for not presenting additional nonstatutory mitigation	Counsel failed to present more social-history/family-mental-illness evidence which could have swayed sentence	Counsel reasonably focused on mental-health experts and avoided witnesses that could invite harmful testimony; additional evidence was cumulative	No deficiency or prejudice; claim denied
2) Penalty-phase IAC for not presenting evidence of future prison conduct/reduced future dangerousness	Counsel should have presented measures showing low future violence risk and that Hunter is not a psychopath	Such evidence would have conflicted with mitigation strategy centered on psychosis; trial strategy reasonable and evidence speculative	No deficiency or prejudice; claim denied
3) Penalty-phase counsel misstated vote requirement (majority needed)	Misstatement may have misled jury about required vote for death recommendation	Court properly instructed jury on advisory vote; actual jury votes exceeded a simple majority	Even assuming error, no prejudice; claim denied
4) Guilt-phase IAC for failing to preserve/move for mistrial over Cannon's testimony/refusal to be cross-examined	Counsel should have sought mistrial when Cannon refused to answer, implicating confrontation rights	Cannon’s terse testimony was cumulative and not so prejudicial as to vitiate trial; other evidence independently established involvement	No prejudice shown; claim denied
5) Constitutional challenges (e.g., nonunanimous advisory recommendation) & habeas claim	Nonunanimous jury recommendations violate Eighth Amendment evolving standards	Florida precedent permits nonunanimous advisory recommendations; Kimbrough and other Florida cases reject claim	Habeas denied; nonunanimous advisory recommendations not unconstitutional under current Florida jurisprudence

Key Cases Cited

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (establishing the two-prong ineffective assistance standard)
Porter v. McCollum, 558 U.S. 30 (2009) (prejudice analysis requires weighing total mitigation against aggravation)
Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000) (mitigation reweighing framework)
Hunter v. State, 8 So. 3d 1052 (Fla. 2008) (direct appeal affirming convictions/sentences and describing trial evidence)
Kimbrough v. State, 125 So. 3d 752 (Fla. 2013) (rejecting Eighth Amendment challenge to nonunanimous advisory recommendations)
Victorino v. State, 127 So. 3d 478 (Fla. 2013) (discussing Cannon testimony and cumulative-evidence analysis)
Occhicone v. State, 768 So. 2d 1037 (Fla. 2000) (strategic decisions and counsel’s tactical choices reviewed for reasonableness)