Pittman v. Secretary, FL DOC

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief in a capital case where petitioner was convicted of three murders. The court held that the Florida Supreme Court's decision to exclude evidence related to an alternative perpetrator was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established law and the district court correctly denied relief. In this case, petitioner sought to admit into evidence testimony from a death row inmate who claimed to have received and then destroyed a letter in which the lynchpin witness who put him on death row allegedly confessed to the triple homicide petitioner was accused of. The court explained that it was not hard to understand why the trial court was skeptical of this story. The court also rejected petitioner's claim that counsel was ineffective during the penalty phase of trial. View "Pittman v. Secretary, FL DOC" on Justia Law