RAMON LARA, APPELLANT,
v.
THE 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.
Ramon Lara appealed a trial court's denial of his post-conviction motion to vacate his conviction and sentence, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel. The Florida District Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that trial counsel's advice to waive jury trial and stipulate to facts was a legitimate trial tactic, and counsel's subjective judgments and failure to object to prosecutorial argument did not constitute ineffective assistance.
Trial counsel's advice to waive jury trial and stipulate to facts was a legitimate trial tactic and did not constitute ineffective assistance. Trial counsel's subjective judgments about judicial disposition, failure to object to non-substantial prosecutorial argument, and agreement to stipulation terms likewise did not rise to the level of ineffective assistance of counsel.
[1] A defendant's decision to waive a jury trial and enter into a stipulation of facts based on counsel's advice is a legitimate trial tactic, and its unsuccessful outcome do…
[2] Trial counsel's subjective judgment regarding a judge's likely disposition of a case, even if ultimately incorrect, does not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel…
Previewing 2 of 4 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“By stipulating to what the state's evidence would have developed at trial in any event, thereby obviating the need for an extensive trial, the defendant employed a perfectly legitimate, calculated trial tactic of going directly, without wasting the judge's time, to the merits of his defense.”
Establishes that counsel's advice to stipulate was a legitimate trial strategy, not ineffective assistance
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceLara was convicted after his trial counsel advised him to waive his right to a jury trial and enter into a stipulation regarding the facts of the case…
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 Prosecutorial Argument cases and more on FLexlaw
PER CURIAM.
This is an appeal by the defendant Ramon Lara from a trial court order denying his post-conviction motion to vacate judgment and sentence under Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.850. We have previously affirmed Lara’s conviction upon a direct appeal from the judgment and sentence. Lara v. State, 475 So. 2d 1340 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985).
The legal basis for the motion to vacate below was, in essence, that the defendant was not afforded effective assistance of counsel when trial counsel recommended to the defendant that he waive trial by jury and enter into a stipulation at trial as to the facts of the case. The trial court entered an extensive order rejecting this claim; we entirely agree and affirm based on the following briefly stated legal analysis.
First, we see no ineffective assistance of counsel in trial counsel’s advice that the defendant should waive trial by jury and enter into the subject stipulation. As we stated on the defendant’s direct appeal from his conviction:
“By stipulating to what the state’s evidence would have developed at trial in any event, thereby obviating the need for an extensive trial, the defendant employed a perfectly legitimate, calculated trial tactic of going directly, without wasting the judge’s time, to the merits of his defense. That defense, perhaps the only defense that could have been raised in the case, was that the state’s case was insufficient to establish any criminal participation by the defendant in the crimes for which he was charged. Under these circumstances, we can discern no violation of the defendant’s rights. The fact that the defense tactic proved unsuccessful in that the defendant was convicted and received a severe sentence, cannot in hindsight change this result.”
Lara v. State, 475 So. 2d at 1341.
Second, we think that the defendant’s criticism of trial counsel’s “mind set” —namely, his 95% belief, which he conveyed to the defendant, that the trial judge would acquit the defendant based on counsel’s knowledge of the judge and the judge’s prior comments in the case — cannot in itself amount to ineffective assistance of counsel. Trial lawyers’ judgments on matters of this nature are necessarily subjective and cannot later be faulted when the judgment proves incorrect. In this case, counsel consulted with other lawyers in his office before giving any advice to the defendant on this issue; moreover, we think counsel’s judgment was based on reasonable indications as to the trial judge’s probable disposition of the case. Indeed, as the trial court noted in the order under review, counsel would have been dubbed a “strategic genius” if the defendant had been acquitted. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688-89, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2065-66, 80 L.Ed.2d 674, 693-94 (1984); Sireci v. State, 469 So. 2d 119, 120 (Fla.1985), cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1010, 106 S.Ct. 3308, 92 L.Ed.2d 721 (1986); Knight v. State, 394 So. 2d 997, 1001 (Fla.1981). For these reasons, Costello v. State, 260 So. 2d 198 (Fla.1972) has no application to this case.
Third, the defendant’s criticism of trial counsel that he allowed the prosecutor in his final argument to the trial court to misstate the facts in the stipulation hardly rises to the level of ineffective assistance of counsel. Indeed, a failure to object to improper prosecutorial argument rarely amounts to ineffective assistance of couh-sel, and surely not in this case where the errors, if any, were not substantial in nature. See Ferro v. State, 488 So. 2d 179 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986); State v. Stirrup, 469 So. 2d 845, 847-48 (Fla. 3d DCA), rev. denied, 480 So. 2d 1296 (Fla.1985); Anderson v. State, 467 So. 2d 781, 787-88 (Fla. 3d DCA), pet. for rev. dismissed, 475 So. 2d 693 (Fla.1985).
Finally, we are unpersuaded' that counsel’s agreement to certain aspects of the stipulation amounts to ineffective assistance of counsel. The facts of the case as contained in the stipulation are basically accurate and complete; the defendant’s criticism of the stipulation amounts only to a failure of counsel to put the proper “spin” on the facts.
Affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Chacon v. State, 735 So. 2d 569 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999)…ate, 697 So. 2d 957 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997) (holding that defendant’s claim that his counsel’s incorrect advice about the consequences of a plea bargain led him to enter a plea stated a facially sufficient claim for postconviction relief); Lara v. State, 528 So. 2d 984 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988) (recognizing implicitly that defendant’s claim that his counsel was ineffective in advising him to waive trial, by jury was cognizable in a postconvietion motion but finding that in that case the advice was a legitimate strategic…
-
Colon v. State, 730 So. 2d 780 (Fla. 3d DCA 1999)…rom the standard instruction which was inconsequential to the overall instruction and indeed, harmless given the fact that the complete written jury instruction was sent to the jury room with the jurors during their deliberations. See Lara v. State, 528 So. 2d 984, 985 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988) (finding that defense counsel not ineffective in failing to object to prosecutor’s alleged improper final argument where error was harmless). Therefore, finding no error in the denial of Colon’s 3.850 motion, we affirm. Aff…
-
Orestes Rodriguez v. State, 544 So. 2d 339 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989)…and v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Sireci v. State, 469 So. 2d 119 (Fla.1985), cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1010, 106 S.Ct. 3308, 92 L.Ed.2d 721 (1986); Knight v. State, 394 So. 2d 997 (Fla.1981); [*340] Lara v. State, 528 So. 2d 984 (Fla. 3d DCA), review denied, 534 So. 2d 400 (Fla.1988).…
Previewing 3 of 5 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (U.S. 1984)
- Knight v. State, 394 So. 2d 997 (Fla. 1981)
- Costello v. State, 260 So. 2d 198 (Fla. 1972)
- Anderson v. State, 467 So. 2d 781 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985)
- Sireci v. State, 469 So. 2d 119 (Fla. 1985)
- State v. Delmer Stirrup, 469 So. 2d 845 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985)
- Landahl v. City of Cape Coral, 478 U.S. 1010 (U.S. 1986)
- Welch v. Rice, 478 U.S. 1010 (U.S. 1986)
- Lara v. State, 475 So. 2d 1340 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985)
- Ferro v. State, 488 So. 2d 179 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986)