GARY T. WRIGHT, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 5th DCA | 2005-02-11
No. 5D04-3003
SHARP, W., and PALMER, JJ., concur.
892 So. 2d 1209 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (2005)

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

Wright appeals the summary denial of his ineffective assistance of counsel claim under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. Although he raised eight claims, the court found merit in only one: counsel's misadvice regarding the maximum sentence he faced when choosing between accepting a two-year plea offer and proceeding to trial.


Holding

The court held that Wright's claim had merit under the standard established in Young v. State and Cottle v. State, which requires showing that counsel failed to correctly communicate a plea offer, the defendant would have accepted the offer if correctly advised, and acceptance would have resulted in a lesser sentence. The trial court's reasoning—that Wright suffered no prejudice because he received only fifteen years—was insufficient to address the core claim that he was misadvised and unable to make an informed decision.


Headnotes

[1] A defendant is entitled to postconviction relief when counsel misadvises the defendant of potential sentences, leading the defendant to reject a more favorable pretrial p…

[2] To establish ineffective assistance of counsel for advising a defendant to reject a plea offer, the defendant must prove counsel failed to convey or misinformed the defen…

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Key Quotes

“the failure to communicate or correctly communicate the facts and merits of a plea offer may entitle a defendant to postconviction relief”

Establishes the legal standard for ineffective assistance claims based on plea offer miscommunication

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Facts & Procedural History

Wright was offered a two-year plea deal but chose to proceed to trial after allegedly being misadvised by trial counsel that he faced a maximum fiftee…

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Opinion of the Court
PETERSON, J.

PETERSON, J.

Gary T. Wright appeals the summary denial of his Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 motion alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Although he raises eight claims of ineffective assistance, we find merit in only one.

Wright complains that his trial counsel misadvised him when he had to choose between proceeding to trial and accepting a two-year plea offer. He proceeded to trial, was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in the Department of Corrections, consecutive to an eight-year sentence for a control-release violation. Wright alleges that his trial counsel told him that he was facing a maximum fifteen-year sentence and that he understood that he would receive a concurrent sentence for the violation, when in actuality, he was charged with two first-degree felonies, one punishable by life and the other punishable by a thirty-year sentence.

Additionally, the State had filed a notice that it was seeking habitualization and a sentence as a prison releasee reoffender that could have resulted in a life sentence.

The trial court denied Wright’s claim, finding that because he only received a fifteen-year sentence, he was not prejudiced by the advice that he faced a maximum sentence of fifteen years. This does not address the fact that Wright was allegedly misadvised as to the maximum penalty he was facing and that his risk was allegedly incorrectly minimized. Wright also alleged that if he had been accurately advised of the maximum consequence, he would have accepted the plea offer. In Young v. State, 608 So. 2d 111 (Fla. 5th DCA 1992), cited with approval in Cottle v. State, 733 So. 2d 963, 969 (Fla.1999), this court held that the failure to communicate or correctly communicate the facts and merits of a plea offer may entitle a defendant to postconviction relief. We held that a defendant must allege that counsel failed to communicate or correctly communicate a plea offer; that defendant would have accepted the plea offer if correctly advised; and, that acceptance of the plea offer would have resulted in a lesser sentence. The Florida Supreme Court adopted the same standard in Cottle.

Furthermore, the Court agreed that inherent prejudice results from a defendant’s inability, due to counsel’s neglect, to make an informed decision whether to accept a plea offer. Applying that standard, this court held in Lewis v. State, 751 So. 2d 715 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000), that counsel’s failure to inform the defendant of the possibility of an enhanced, habitual offender sentence, when advising defendant about a plea offer, constitutes ineffective assistance.

We affirm the trial court’s denial of all grounds raised by Wright, but reverse on the aforementioned ground four in Wright’s motion and remand to allow the trial court to either attach portions of the record refuting the claim or hold an evidentiary hearing.

AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART; REMANDED.

SHARP, W., and PALMER, JJ., concur.


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