DONALD LEE SMITH, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Donald Lee Smith appealed the summary denial of his motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 and his motion for rehearing. The court reversed, finding that the trial court erred in denying the motion for rehearing as untimely because it failed to properly apply the mailbox rule established in Haag v. State.
The court reversed the denial of the motion for rehearing, holding that the trial court erred by denying it as untimely. Florida courts will presume that a legal document from an inmate is timely filed if it contains a certificate of service showing the pleading was placed with prison officials for mailing on a particular date, and no special language or specific certificate format is required for incarcerated defendants.
[1] A legal document submitted by an inmate is presumed timely filed if it contains a certificate of service showing it was placed in the hands of prison officials for mailin…
[2] The mailbox rule applies to motions for rehearing filed by incarcerated defendants.
Previewing 2 of 5 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“[W]e will presume that a legal document submitted by an inmate is timely filed if it contains a certificate of service showing that the pleading was placed in the hands of the prison or jail officials for mailing on a particular date, if .the pleading would be timely filed if it had been received and file-stamped by the Court on that particular date.”
Establishes the mailbox rule for incarcerated defendants and the presumption of timely filing based on the certificate of service date
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceSmith filed a motion for rehearing in his postconviction relief case with a certificate of service dated August 29, 2000. The trial court clerk's offi…
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WHATLEY, Judge.
Donald Lee Smith appeals the summary denials of his motion for postconviction relief, filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850, and his motion for rehearing, which was denied as untimely. We reverse.
Smith argues that his motion for rehearing was timely based on the mailbox rule set forth in Haag v. State, 591 So. 2d 614 (Fla.1992). Smith’s motion for rehearing, authorized by rule 3.850(g), contained a certificate of service dated August 29, 2000. The motion was file-stamped by the trial court clerk’s office on September 5, 2000. Using this later date, the trial court denied the motion as untimely. Had the trial court used the earlier date contained in the certificate of service, the motion would have been timely. But the trial court held that the certificate of service did not meet the requirements of Thompson v. State, 761 So. 2d 324 (Fla.2000).
In Thompson, after noting that Florida prisons do not uniformly maintain outgoing mail logs, the supreme court held:
[W]e will presume that a legal document submitted by an inmate is timely filed if it contains a certificate of service showing that the pleading was placed in the hands of the prison or jail officials for mailing on a particular date, if .the pleading would be timely filed if it had been received and file-stamped by the Court on that particular date.
Thompson, 761 So. 2d at 326. There are no requirements for a specific certificate of service for incarcerated defendants, see Fla. R.Crim. P. 3.030(e), and we do not read Thompson as requiring special language in the standard certificate of service. Therefore, the trial court erred by denying the motion for rehearing as untimely.
On the substantive claims, we affirm without discussion the trial court’s denial of all claims except for the one addressed by the motion for rehearing. As argued there, the trial court failed to address one claim regarding the voluntariness of Smith’s plea. On remand, if the record conclusively refutes this claim, the trial court may deny relief with the appropriate attachments from the record. See Colon v. State, 595 So. 2d 271 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992). Otherwise, an evidentiary hearing will be required.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
BLUE, A.C.J., and SILBERMAN, J., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Griffin v. D.R. Sistuenck, 816 So. 2d 600 (Fla. 2002)…that an inmate recite the exact phrase, “the pleading was placed in the hands of prison or jail officials for mailing” on a particular date in the certificate of service in order for the pleading to fall under the “mailbox rule.” See Smith v. State, 793 So. 2d 34 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001). We agree with the Second District. Our decision in Thompson was intended to reduce the hurdles inmates encounter in gaining access to the courts, not to put in place additional hurdles. In Griffin’s certificate of service he ass…
Authorities Cited
- State v. Thurston McCLAIN, 591 So. 2d 614 (Fla. 1992)
- Haag v. State, 591 So. 2d 614 (Fla. 1992)
- Thompson v. State, 761 So. 2d 324 (Fla. 2000)
- Colon v. State, 595 So. 2d 271 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992)