ANTHONY LAMARCA vs. STATE OF FLORIDA
Supreme Court of Florida
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No. SC03-1815
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ANTHONY LAMARCA,
Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
___________________________
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No. SC04-847
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ANTHONY LAMARCA,
Petitioner,
vs.
JAMES R. McDONOUGH, etc.,
Respondent.
[April 20, 2006]
PER CURIAM.
Anthony Lamarca appeals an order of the circuit court denying a motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851 and petitions this Court for a writ of habeas corpus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), (9), Fla. Const. For the reasons explained below, we affirm the circuit court's order denying Lamarca's 3.851 motion and deny Lamarca's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
FACTS
On November 6, 1997, Anthony Lamarca was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of his son-in-law, Kevin Flynn. He elected to represent himself during the penalty phase and waived the presentation of mitigating evidence. The jury recommended a sentence of death by a vote of eleven to one, and the trial judge sentenced him accordingly. This Court upheld that sentence on direct appeal. Lamarca v. State, 785 So. 2d 1209 (Fla.), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 925 (2001).
The following facts are relevant to Lamarca's 3.851 motion and
| habeas petition. |
On December 2, 1995, Anthony Lamarca met his daughter and son-in-law, Tonya and Kevin Flynn, at a neighborhood bar. Lamarca had recently been released from prison for a 1984 conviction for kidnapping and attempted sexual battery with a weapon. See Lamarca v. State, 515 So. 2d 309 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987). Lamarca asked Tonya to borrow the keys to her car, but Kevin refused and offered to drive Lamarca home instead. The two left the bar.
Later that night, Lamarca returned to the bar alone and told Tonya that she had to pick up Kevin at Joseph Lamarca's home. Joseph Lamarca is Anthony Lamarca's father. When they arrived at the otherwise unoccupied house, Lamarca raped Tonya. He then appeared from a back room with a rifle in his hand and told Tonya that he was going to kill himself. He instructed her to stay put until she heard gunshots. After he left the room, Tonya fled to a nearby phone booth and reported that she heard shots being fired at a nearby residence. She gave the police Joseph Lamarca's address. When the police arrived at Joseph's house, they discovered that the front door looked as though it had been kicked in, and after obtaining Joseph's permission to search the residence, they found a rifle.
The police began searching for Anthony Lamarca. One detective arrived at Anthony Lamarca's trailer and spotted Kevin's body through a window. Upon entering the trailer, he found Kevin's body on the bedroom floor, bullet casings matching the rifle recovered from Joseph's residence, and blood splattered throughout the house. Lamarca was eventually arrested in Washington where he was living with Lori Galloway and her adult son, Darren Brown. Lori and Lamarca corresponded frequently while Lamarca was in prison, and they were married shortly after Lamarca's arrest for the murder of Kevin. The marriage ended before Lamarca's trial.
At trial, Brown testified on the State's behalf. He claimed that Lamarca arrived in Washington unannounced, carrying very few belongings. In addition, James Hughes, Lamarca's former fellow inmate, testified that Lamarca told him in July 1995 that Lamarca was planning to kill Lamarca's son-in-law because the son-in-law had raped Lamarca's daughter. Hughes had charges pending against him in Charlotte County at the time Lamarca's trial took place. Jeremy Smith also testified for the State, claiming that Lamarca arrived at Smith's home on the night of December 2, 1995, and said, â€
