VICTOR TONY JONES, Appellant, vs. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee.
No. SC15-1549
Supreme Court of Florida
[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
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
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.”
In Hall, the Supreme Court held that Florida‘s interpretation of
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
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
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
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
