CHRISTOPHER G. WALKER, 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.
A defendant is not entitled to postconviction relief for a nonexistent crime if their judgment of conviction became final before the crime was declared nonexistent by the supreme court.
Christopher Walker was convicted of attempted felony murder. His conviction became final before the Florida Supreme Court ruled that attempted felony …
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 Attempted Felony Murder cases and more on FLexlaw
PER CURIAM.
Christopher Walker challenges the trial court’s denial of his postconvietion motion filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. It is his principal contention that he was convicted of a nonexistent crime, attempted felony murder. Because Walker’s judgment became final before the supreme court determined that the crime of attempted felony murder did not in fact exist, he is not entitled to relief and this court must affirm.
In Walker v. State, 639 So. 2d 1030 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994), this court affirmed Walker’s convictions but reversed for resentencing. His judgment became final upon the issuance of this court’s mandate affirming his convictions on August 1, 1994, before the decision in State v. Gray, 654 So. 2d 552 (Fla.1995), which determined that the crime of attempted felony murder did not jn fact exist. The supreme court thereafter announced in State v. Woodley, 695 So. 2d 297 (Fla.1997), that the holding of Gray was limited to those cases whose judgments were not final on the date Gray issued.
To prevent his judgment of conviction from becoming final aftér the affirmance by this court, Walker would have been obligated to pursue further appellate remedies to challenge the judgment of conviction at that time, and not at such time as his sentence became final after remand. See State v. McKinnon, 540 So. 2d 111 (Fla.1989), clarified on other grounds, State v. Roberts, 661 So. 2d 821 (Fla.1995) (discussing the jurisdiction of the trial court to resentence on remand while discretionary jurisdiction is invoked in the supreme court challenging a district court’s affirmance of a judgment of conviction). ' Therefore, upon the issuance of this court’s mandate on August 1, 1994, Walker’s judgment became final before the supreme court’s decision in Gray.
We affirm the trial court’s denial of Walker’s other claims without discussion.
Affirmed.
CAMPBELL, A.C.J., and BLUE and GREEN, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Fraley v. State, 762 So. 2d 549 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000)…reject defendant’s argument and agree with the Second District that the convictions for attempted murder became “final” for Gray purposes when this court issued its mandate in 1994 in connection with defendant’s original appeal. See Walker v. State, 715 So. 2d 1065 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998). At that point defendant’s convictions for attempted murder were affirmed. All that remained was resentenc-ing in light of the fact that certain other [*551] convictions had been vacated. See Fraley, 641 So. 2d at 129-30. Appointe…
-
White v. State, 898 So. 2d 1215 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005)…PER CURIAM. Affirmed. See Selby v. State, 774 So. 2d 785 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000); Walker v. State, 715 So. 2d 1065 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998).…
-
Pope v. State, 257 So. 3d 435 (Fla. 2d DCA 2018)
Authorities Cited
- State v. Collin Gray, 654 So. 2d 552 (Fla. 1995)
- State v. Woodley, 695 So. 2d 297 (Fla. 1997)
- State v. Webster Fleming McKINNON, 540 So. 2d 111 (Fla. 1989)
- State v. Roberts, 661 So. 2d 821 (Fla. 1995)
- Walker v. State, 639 So. 2d 1030 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994)