JULIO TAYLOR, APPELLANT,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 3d DCA | 1987-05-19
No. 85-2814
Schwartz, Chief Judge
507 So. 2d 720 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (1987)

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.

Synopsis

Florida appellate court affirmed aggravated assault conviction, holding that prior trespass conviction obtained without counsel was not void where defendant was specifically offered and declined counsel, and thus could be used for sentencing guidelines enhancement; court also rejected challenge to public defender fee assessment.


Holding

A prior conviction obtained without counsel is not void for collateral sentencing purposes when the defendant was specifically offered and declined counsel without charge.


Headnotes

[1] A prior conviction obtained without counsel is not void for collateral sentencing enhancement purposes when the defendant was specifically offered and declined counsel wi…

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 intelligence

Key Quotes

“the defendant was specifically offered and specifically declined representation by counsel without charge”

Court's rationale for why prior conviction was not void for collateral sentencing purposes

Facts & Procedural History

Taylor was convicted of aggravated assault. The trial court included sentencing guideline points based on his prior trespass conviction, which resulte…

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.


Opinion of the Court
SCHWARTZ, Chief Judge.

SCHWARTZ, Chief Judge.

The appellant was convicted of aggravated assault. In making the guidelines computation, the trial court included points under the “legal constraint” category because Taylor was on six-months’ non-reporting probation pursuant to a guilty plea on an earlier trespass charge. He claims that this was improper because the previous plea and conviction were obtained without an effective waiver of counsel. See Crigler v. State, 487 So. 2d 420 (Fla. 2d DCA 1986); Pilla v. State, All So. 2d 1088 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985); Hayes v. State, 468 So. 2d 470 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985).

We do not agree. While the colloquy which preceded the trespass plea might be deemed insufficiently detailed to pass muster on direct review, Kimble v. State, 429 So. 2d 1369 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983), we find that, since the defendant was specifically offered and specifically declined representation by counsel without charge, see Mason v. State, 176 So. 2d 76 (Fla.1965), the subsequent judgment was not totally “void” or “invalid” so as to require denying it the purely collateral effect it was afforded below. See Mason, 176 So. 2d at 76; State v. Davis, 203 So. 2d 160 (Fla.1967).

Taylor claims also that he was not given proper advance notice of the trial court’s assessment of the eminently modest sum of $250 as the public defender’s fee and lien in the instant proceeding. The order in question, however, provided that, if the defendant indicated his disagreement within thirty days, a full hearing would be held on the matter. Taylor did not do so. On these facts, we can find no deprivation of his rights on this issue.

Affirmed.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw