Eleventh Circuit denies Harry Phillips habeas relief
Despite finding the State Attorney’s behavior “dishonest and unethical," the Eleventh Circuit denied Phillips' request for relief.
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied Phillips’s appeal from the federal district court denying his petition for writ of habeas corpus based on the prosecutor’s misconduct that involved falsifying and withholding evidence.
Background
Harry Phillips was sentenced to death for crimes that occurred in 1982 following a jury’s recommendation for death by a vote of 7-5. At trial, four inmates testified against Phillips that he had confessed to the crimes. On direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence of death.
In his initial postconviction motion, Phillips argued that inmates falsely testified, in part, that he confessed to the crimes and “the State withheld evidence about what had been promised to the inmates for testifying against him, and the State allowed the inmates to testify falsely about these promises.” Much of the falsified testimony and evidence was manipulated and/or withheld by the State Attorney, unbeknownst to Phillips at the time of trial.
After an evidentiary hearing on Phillips’ motion, the trial court denied the motion, concluding that “Phillips failed to prove that the State withheld information showing that Phillips never confessed to [two of the inmates]” and that “Phillips failed to substantiate his allegations that the inmates were told about reward money before they testified or that he State had made promise to the inmates beyond what was disclosed at trial.” On appeal, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s order.
Phillips then sought relief in federal court, where the trial court denied relief. The trial court “concluded that the Florida Supreme Court’s decision was entitled to deference.” Phillips “failed to overcome the presumption of correctness” that applied to the state court’s determinations of credibility and other factual determinations. Phillip appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Eleventh Circuit’s Decision
On Friday, February 9, the Eleventh Circuit panel issued an unpublished opinion affirming the federal district court’s decision.
Again, where there were conflicts in the record as to the falsity of the inmates’ testimony at trial, the Eleventh Circuit determined that Phillips did not present “the clear and convincing evidence necessary to reject the state court’s credibility determinations” and, presuming the correctness of the state court’s determinations, the conclusions were reasonable.
On Phillips’ other alleged Giglio errors, the Court did not reach the merits but, instead, concluded that any error was harmless because, “[g]iven the other evidence of Phillips’s guilty, [the Court was] left with no grave doubt about whether the alleged Giglio violations had a substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury’s verdict.” After making this conclusion, the Court made a point to condemn the State Attorney’s conduct in this case, about which Phillips complained:
Waksman redacted discoverable material and then covered his tracks with his improper cut-and-paste practices, making the alterations undetectable. This behavior was dishonest and un-ethical. But our inquiry here is a different one. The Supreme Court has made clear that to be entitled to relief on collateral review, a state prisoner must do more than show a constitutional error; he also must show that the error had a substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury’s verdict.
The Eleventh Circuit also denied Phillips’s Brady claims based on deference to the state court and harmlessness.
Judge Wilson concurred but wrote separately to highlight the implications of the State Attorney’s “dishonest and unethical” behavior in this case, which he said “presents a close call” on harmlessness, writing:
“[H]armless” should not be read to minimize Prosecutor Waksman’s routine practice of redacting discovery documents. Prosecutorial misconduct like this is so egregious that it can easily cast a shadow on the entire criminal trial and our criminal justice system more broadly. But for the significant corroborating evidence in this case, Waksman’s conduct amounts to a Giglio violation.
The full decision can be downloaded here.