OTIS HEARD, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 2002-08-14
No. 4D01-4017
GUNTHER, KLEIN and SHAHOOD, JJ., concur.
824 So. 2d 965 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2002) Positive Treatment
Cited by 2 cases

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Holding

The court held that the appellant's motion for post-conviction relief was not time-barred and reversed the summary denial.


Facts & Procedural History

Appellant sought post-conviction relief, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to inform him that the state could not locate its key …

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Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

We reverse the summary denial of appellant’s motion for post-conviction relief. Appellant’s claim is that his lawyer was ineffective because he knew that the state could not locate its only witness, the victim of the alleged sex related charges, but did not inform appellant. If appellant had known, he would not have entered a plea.

The state’s response rests on a memorandum in the state attorney’s file indicating the state attorney was having difficulty finding the victim. The state’s position, which apparently persuaded the trial court, was that this memorandum was a public record which could have been obtained by the appellant in 1997, and his claim is time-barred under rule 3.850. The record, however, does not demonstrate that this was a public record.

Appellant argues that the memorandum is newly discovered evidence, only recently made available to him in proceedings brought against him under the Jimmy Ryce Act. We cannot agree with the state that, based on this record, appellant’s motion is time-barred. We therefore reverse for an evidentiary hearing.

GUNTHER, KLEIN and SHAHOOD, JJ., concur.


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Citator

Cited By

  • Rivero v. State, 15 So. 3d 625 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009)
    …o defeat a defendant's claim that he was unaware of a plea offer when the basis for the motion is that counsel was ineffective for failing to timely disclose the offer. See Osborne v. State, 958 So. 2d 1017, 1019 (Fla. 5th DCA 2007); Heard v. State, 824 So. 2d 965, 965 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002). . Rivero did aver that immediately upon hearing the testimony of Defabio at the 2005 post-conviction hearing, he told his counsel for that hearing — who was different than his initial defense counsel — that the offer had n…

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