HOWARD BAKER, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
The court affirmed the trial court's denial of a Rule 3.850 motion to withdraw a guilty plea, finding that conflicting evidence regarding the defendant's mental competency at the time of plea did not constitute an abuse of discretion.
A trial court does not abuse its discretion in denying a motion to withdraw a guilty plea when evidence of the defendant's mental competency is conflicting.
[1] A trial court does not abuse its discretion in denying a motion to withdraw a guilty plea when conflicting evidence exists regarding the defendant's mental competency at…
Previewing 1 of 1 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceBaker entered a guilty plea and later moved to withdraw it under Rule 3.850, alleging mental incompetency. At the evidentiary hearing on remand, testi…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Competency To Enter Plea cases and more on FLexlaw
BOARDMAN, Judge.
This is an appeal from the denial of appellant’s Rule 3.850 motion following an evidentiary hearing. The trial court originally summarily denied the motion, but we held on appeal that appellant’s motion contained allegations of incompetency sufficient to require an evidentiary hearing to determine whether his plea was voluntarily entered by one competent to understand the consequences of his plea. Baker v. State, 408 So. 2d 686 (Fla. 2d DCA 1982).
At the hearing held on remand, the trial court heard testimony from appellant’s attorney and his psychiatrist suggesting that appellant was mentally incompetent when he entered his plea. Conflicting evidence, however, was presented by Michael Gal-lante, a probation officer who interviewed appellant for about an hour immediately after he entered his plea, and by the reports of two examining physicians. Gallante testified that appellant’s demeanor appeared normal on the day of his plea, that appellant responded coherently to questions posed, and that he explained that he had decided to plead guilty because a jury trial would not do him any good. The medical reports of the examining physicians concluded that appellant was capable of exercising good judgment.
In light of this latter evidence, we do not believe the trial court abused its discretion in denying appellant’s motion to withdraw his plea.
We therefore AFFIRM.
OTT, C.J., and RYDER, J., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Campbell v. State, 488 So. 2d 592 (Fla. 2d DCA 1986)…gly, we reverse and remand this case to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Of course, if a hearing is held on Campbell’s motion, his allegations are subject to [*593] rebuttal by competent evidence. Baker v. State, 427 So. 2d 1141 (Fla. 2d DCA 1983). The remaining grounds raised in Campbell’s motion are without merit, and the trial court properly denied relief on those grounds. LEHAN, A.C.J., and FRANK, J., concur.…
-
Marshall v. State, 466 So. 2d 1234 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985)…isfied from our examination of the record that the trial court conducted a careful inquiry into the matter and had basis to conclude that defendant did not sustain his burden to establish that the guilty plea should be withdrawn. See Baker v. State, 427 So. 2d 1141 (Fla. 2d DCA 1983); Onnestad v. State, 404 So. 2d 403 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981). DANAHY, A.C.J., and LEHAN and HALL, JJ., concur.…
Authorities Cited
- Cleveland Plummer v. Cindy Copeland & the State of Fla., 408 So. 2d 686 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982)
- Baker v. State, 408 So. 2d 686 (Fla. 2d DCA 1982)