State of Florida v. Thomas D. Woodel

After conducting a lengthy evidentiary hearing and analyzing all of the evidence presented at the hearing in a comprehensive eighty-six-page order, the trial court concluded that a new penalty phase is required because confidence in the sentence of death has been undermined based on trial counsel’s troubling failure to properly prepare for the penalty phase and present important available mitigation, even after he was given a second chance when a new penalty phase was previously ordered. I dissent from the Court’s rare step of reversing the trial court’s- determination that its confidence in…