CHARLES E. SMITH, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 2000-12-20
No. 4D00-2876
WARNER, C.J., STEVENSON and SHAHOOD, JJ., concur.
784 So. 2d 460 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2000) Negative Treatment
Cited by 60 cases

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

Charles E. Smith appeals the summary denial of his post-conviction motion alleging ineffective assistance of counsel in connection with a guilty plea entered in 1994. The court reversed, holding that Smith's motion was timely under the extended filing period established in Wood v. State because his claim was cognizable under coram nobis.


Holding

Smith's post-conviction motion was timely because his claim—that counsel failed to advise him that his plea could be used as a prior offense—was cognizable under coram nobis, entitling him to the extended two-year filing period from Wood's issuance date rather than the stricter requirement that he be in custody.


Headnotes

[1] A defendant's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel inducing an involuntary guilty plea is cognizable under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850.

[2] A defendant must be in custody on the challenged conviction to seek relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850.

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Key Quotes

“the claim raised by the movant in Wood was that his defense counsel failed to tell him at the time he entered his plea that it could be used against him as a prior offense in federal court. If such a claim was considered sufficiently cognizable under coram nobis for the supreme court to find that Wood's motion was timely, then Appellant's motion also must be considered as timely.”

Establishes the court's rationale for finding Smith's claim was timely—that it was substantially identical to the claim approved in Wood as cognizable under coram nobis.

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Facts & Procedural History

Smith entered a guilty plea on April 18, 1994, to aggravated battery, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and battery, and was sentenced to four day…

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Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

Charles E. Smith (Appellant) appeals the summary denial of his motion for post-conviction relief, pursuant to rule 3.850, Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure. We reverse and remand.

Appellant alleged that on April 18, 1994, he entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to four days time served for aggravated battery, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and battery. There was no direct appeal. In his postconviction motion filed on March 27, 2000, nearly six years later, he claimed his'plea was involuntarily induced by ineffective assistance of defense counsel, who misadvised him, when he asked whether the charges could be used against him as a prior conviction in federal or state court, that they could not be, and that if it were not for such misadvice, he would have proceeded to trial. At the time, he was being investigated on other charges, which he discussed with counsel. Six months later, the other charges were filed, and following a jury trial on those other charges, he was found guilty. The aggravated battery charge in the instant case was used to enhance his sentence in the later case, so that he was sentenced as a habitual violent felony offender. In filing the motion to vacate the instant conviction and sentence, he argued that his motion was timely filed pursuant to Wood v. State, 750 So. 2d 592 (Fla.1999)(providing that all defendants previously adjudicated would have two years from issuance date of May 27, 1999, in which to file rule 3.850 motions raising claims traditionally cognizable under coram nobis). The trial court summarily denied the motion based on the State’s response, which was that the motion was untimely as Appellant had learned shortly after entering his plea that counsel’s advice was wrong and could have filed his motion within two years of his conviction.

However, Appellant was not in custody on the conviction he now challenges when he learned that counsel’s advice was wrong, and so relief was not available to him under rule 3.850, as it contained a requirement, until the issuance of Wood, that the movant be in custody.

The State now argues that Appellant is not entitled to the extended time limit available under Wood because that decision was limited to “claims traditionally cognizable under coram nobis.” Id. at 595. However, as Appellant points out in his reply, the claim raised by the movant in Wood was that his defense counsel failed to tell him at the time he entered his plea that it could be used against him as a prior offense in federal court. If such a claim was considered sufficiently cognizable under coram nobis for the supreme court to find that Wood’s motion was timely, then Appellant’s motion also must be considered as timely.

Accordingly, the order summarily denying Appellant’s motion is reversed and the case is remanded for further consideration.

WARNER, C.J., STEVENSON and SHAHOOD, JJ., concur.

Other
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

We deny the State’s motion for rehearing, filed in response to this court’s opinion dated December 20, 2000, which reversed an order of the trial court summarily denying the appellant’s rule 3.850 motion for postconviction relief.

The trial court’s denial was based on the untimeliness of the motion. This court reversed after determining that the time had not expired based on the application of Wood v. State, 750 So. 2d 592 (Fla.1999)(providing that all defendants previously adjudicated would have two years from issuance date of May 27, 1999, in which to file rule 3.850 motions raising claims traditionally cognizable under co-ram nobis).1 Appellant was never in custody on the challenged convictions because he was sentenced only to four days time served; therefoi-e, he could not file a rule 3.850 motion as to those convictions until the supreme court removed the custody requirement from rule 3.850(a) in Wood.

The State seeks to distinguish this case from Wood because Appellant was placed in state custody on other convictions less than a year after the date of the challenged conviction, while the defendant in Wood was in federal custody on his other convictions. Both movants’ sentences had been enhanced due to their convictions for the challenged offenses. The State takes the position that, prior to the supreme court’s removal of the custody requirement, from rule 3.850(a) in Wood, Appellant could have challenged his conviction under rule 3.850 during the time he was in state custody on his subsequent convictions.

We can discern in Wood no indication that the supreme court intended to distinguish between defendants held in state custody on other offenses and defendants held in federal custody on other offenses. Accordingly, the motion for rehearing is denied.

STEVENSON and SHAHOOD, JJ., concur. WARNER, C.J., concurs specially with opinion

. The movant in Wood alleged that his attorney failed to advise him at the time that he entered his plea that it could be used against him as a prior offense in federal court. The court in Wood addressed the procedural aspects of Wood’s claim and did not determine that, on the merits, a claim of failure to advise of collateral consequences of a plea, as opposed to affirmative misadvice, would merit post-conviction relief. See State v. Ginebra, 511 So. 2d 960, 962 (Fla.1987)(holding that an attorney is required to advise a defendant of the direct consequences of a plea and will not be found ineffective for failing to advise of collateral consequences of the plea), superseded by rule on other grounds as stated in State v. De Abreu, 613 So. 2d 453 (Fla.1993); Sherwood v. State, 743 So. 2d 1196 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999)(on rehearing).

Concurrence
WARNER, C.J.,

WARNER, C.J.,

concurring specially.

While I agree that Wood applies to this case, it does not avoid the state’s laches defense that appellant discovered counsel’s misadvice and could have sought relief at a much earlier time. See Bartz v. State, 740 So. 2d 1243 (Fla. 3d DCA 1999). That claim is subject to an evidentiary hearing also.


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Citator

Cited By (30 total)

  • Bates v. State, 887 So. 2d 1214 (Fla. 2004)
    …3d DCA 2003) (holding that a defendant is not entitled to postconviction relief for affirmative misad-vice regarding the sentence-enhancing consequences of a plea for a new crime committed in the future, and certifying conflict with Smith v. State, 784 So. 2d 460 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)); Clark v. State, 831 So. 2d 1282 (Fla. 3d DCA 2002) (certifying conflict with Smith); McNulty v. State, 831 So. 2d 221 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002) (certifying the same question as in .Bates); Smith v. State, 831 So. 2d221 (Fla. 2d DCA 20…
  • Bates v. State, 818 So. 2d 626 (Fla. 1st DCA 2002)
    …certifying the question of great public importance. And I also note that an additional basis for supreme court review is conflict between the decision herein and the decisions in Love v. State, 814 So. 2d 475 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002), and Smith v. State, 784 So. 2d 460 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000).…
  • LaMarr Love v. State, 814 So. 2d 475 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002)
    …and that it could not be used against him in any subsequent proceedings. This court has held that a claim of affirmative misadvice can be a proper ground for rule 3.850 by way of the former writ of error coram nobis, under Wood. See Smith v. State, 784 So. 2d 460, 461 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000) (holding appellant had two years from issuance of Wood in which to file a postconviction motion claiming that his guilty plea, which was used to enhance sentence for subsequent offense, was involuntarily induced by ineffecti…

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