WILLIE LEE HARPER, APPELLANT,
v.
MICHAEL W. MOORE, SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, 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 held that dismissal for failure to prepay costs was error if the inmate was unable to make the payment due to a DOC hold on his account.
Appellant, an inmate, was ordered to pay partial costs. His prison account showed zero balance and subsequent withdrawals by the Department of Correct…
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 Indigency cases and more on FLexlaw
PER CURIAM.
Appellant, Willie Lee Harper, filed a petition for writ of mandamus on January 22, 1997, challenging a disciplinary report against him. On December 12, 1997, the court found that Harper was only partially indigent, ordered him to make a partial prepayment of $5 toward the $83.50 costs and fees and dismissed the case because Harper failed to make such payment within 15 days. We reverse and remand for clarification concerning whether Harper was unable to make a prepayment because the Department of Corrections (DOC) had placed a hold on his prison account.
The balance sheets from Harper’s prison account filed with his affidavit of indigency on appeal, disclosed a zero balance from October 21, 1997, until December 24, 1997, when $20 was deposited. Previously, whenever Harper deposited money into his account, he immediately began making withdrawals to pay the canteen, thereby exhausting his funds within two days. After Harper had received the court’s order of December 12, 1997, requiring him to make a prepayment of costs, however, this did not occur. Harper made no withdrawals; instead, the DOC made all the withdrawals from the account as of January 8, 1998.
Section 57.085(5), Florida Statutes (1997), authorizes DOC to place a lien on an indigent inmate’s trust account to pay court costs and fees. Accordingly, it is possible that DOC placed a hold on Harper’s account as soon as it received the court’s order of December 12, 1997, and that Harper was therefore unable to withdraw the $5 needed for his prepayment. Dismissal for failure to make the initial payment would be error under such circumstances.
We reverse the order of dismissal and remand with directions for the trial court to determine whether Harper had funds available for the prepayment required by the December 12,1998, order. REVERSED and REMANDED.
ERVIN, LAWRENCE and BROWNING, JJ„ CONCUR.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Huffman v. Moore, 778 So. 2d 411 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001)…nd remand for a determination as to whether, pursuant to section 57.085(5), Florida Statutes, the Department of Corrections placed a hold on Appellant’s prison account, thus precluding him from making payment in a timely manner. See Harper v. Moore, 737 So. 2d 1232 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999). If so, dismissal for failure to make the initial payment would be error. See id. at 1233. In addition, Appellant paid the full filing fee after the trial court’s dismissal of his petition with funds derived by gift from his [*…
-
Scott v. McDONOUGH, 946 So. 2d 1161 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006)…collateral criminal proceeding and the imposition of liens and prepayment obligations under section 57.085(4) and (5), Florida Statutes, was appropriate. [*1163] Now we turn to appellant’s second point on appeal. Appellant cites to Harper v. Moore, 737 So. 2d 1232 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999), and Huffman v. Moore, 778 So. 2d 411 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001), for the proposition that where the Department of Corrections has placed a lien oh an inmate trust account, which makes it impossible for the -inmate to make the partial p…
-
Zygadlo v. McDONOUGH, 967 So. 2d 367 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007)…ment of Corrections at the time of the circuit court filing. Having examined the record and considered the arguments presented, we reverse and remand for further proceedings. See Huffman v. Moore, 778 So. 2d 411 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001); Harper v. Moore, 737 So. 2d 1232 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999). REVERSED and REMANDED. ALLEN, VAN NORTWTCK, and ROBERTS, JJ., concur.…
Previewing 3 of 4 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence