SC09-1417 – Paul Christopher Hildwin v. State of Florida

State: Florida

Docket No: SC09-1417

Case Date: 06/02/2011

Preview:Supreme Court of Florida
____________ No. SC09-1417 ____________ PAUL CHRISTOPHER HILDWIN, Appellant, vs. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee. [June 2, 2011] PER CURIAM. Paul Christopher Hildwin was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986 for the murder of Vronzettie Cox. This Court affirmed Hildwin`s conviction and sentence of death on direct appeal. Hildwin v. State (Hildwin I), 531 So. 2d 124, 129 (Fla. 1988). Hildwin was subsequently granted a new penalty-phase trial on the basis that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance for failing to adequately investigate, prepare, and present mitigating evidence. Hildwin v. Dugger (Hildwin II), 654 So. 2d 107, 110-11 (Fla. 1995). After the new penaltyphase proceeding was held in 1996, Hildwin was again sentenced to death, and this Court affirmed his sentence on direct appeal. Hildwin v. State (Hildwin III), 727

So. 2d 193, 198 (Fla. 1998). Hildwin then filed a motion for postconviction relief attacking his death sentence under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850, which was denied by the trial court after an evidentiary hearing. This appeal follows from the denial of postconviction relief alleging ineffective assistance of counsel in the second penalty-phase proceeding. 1 For the reasons explained in this opinion, we affirm the trial court`s denial of Hildwin`s motion for postconviction relief. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY The following facts were set forth in this Court`s 1988 decision on direct appeal from the conviction and sentence: Appellant was arrested after cashing a check purportedly written to him by one Vronzettie Cox, a forty-two-year-old woman whose body had been found in the trunk of her car, which was hidden in dense woods in Hernando County. Death was due to strangulation; she also had been raped. Evidence indicated she had been killed in a different locale from where her body was found. Her purse, from which some contents had been removed, was found in dense woods, directly on line between her car and appellant`s house. A pair of semen-encrusted women`s underpants was found on a laundry bag in her car, as was a sweat-stained wash rag. Analysis showed the semen and sweat came from nonsecretor (i.e., one who does not secrete blood into other bodily fluids). Appellant, a white male, was found to be a nonsecretor; there was testimony that white male nonsecretors make up eleven percent of the population. The victim had been missing for four days when her body was found. The man she lived with, one Haverty, said she had left their 1. Because the order concerns postconviction relief from a sentence of death, this Court has jurisdiction. See art. V,

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