PHILLIP GENE ADLINGTON, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 2006-06-21
No. 4D06-752
POLEN, GROSS and MAY, JJ„ concur.
931 So. 2d 1040 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2006) Positive Treatment
Cited by 3 cases

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Synopsis

Phillip Gene Adlington appealed the summary denial of his motions to correct an illegal sentence under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) and for post-conviction relief under Rule 3.850. The Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of most claims but reversed and remanded regarding Adlington's claim that his counsel allowed his agreed 24-month sentence to be changed to 36 months without his consent.


Holding

The court affirmed the denial of the scoresheet error claim, involuntary plea claim, and the ineffective assistance claim regarding the scoresheet error. The court reversed the summary denial of Adlington's claim that counsel allowed his agreed 24-month sentence to be changed to 36 months without his knowledge or consent, and remanded for an evidentiary hearing or record attachments refuting the claim.


Headnotes

[1] A claim of scoresheet error under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) requires the movant to allege or show that the trial court record demonstrates on its face e…

[2] Under the "would-have-been-imposed" harmless error test, a scoresheet error will not warrant relief if the trial court would have imposed the same sentence even with a co…

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Key Quotes

“We reject this claim under rule 3.800(a), since appellant has not alleged or shown that the trial court record demonstrates on its face his entitlement to relief.”

Establishes the standard for reviewing scoresheet error claims under Rule 3.800(a), requiring facial demonstration of entitlement to relief.

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Facts & Procedural History

Adlington pleaded guilty to burglary of a conveyance and agreed to a sentence of either 24 or 36 months in prison followed by probation, which could b…

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Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

Phillip Gene Adlington appeals a trial court order summarily denying his consolidated motions to correct sentence under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) and for post conviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. We affirm in part and reverse and remand in part for reasons which follow.

Adlington pleaded guilty to burglary of a conveyance and agreed to be sentenced to a term of either 24 or 36 months in prison followed by probation, to be reduced to 12 months in jail if he turned himself in on a certain date after a brief furlough. The record is not clear on whether the agreed upon sentence was 24 or 36 months in prison. Nonetheless, Adlington failed to appear, and he was sentenced to 36 months in prison. He did not appeal.

In this consolidated motion to correct illegal sentence filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) and motion for post-conviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850, he claimed scoresheet error, ineffective assistance of trial counsel for failure to object to the same scoresheet error, involuntary plea and ineffective assistance of trial counsel for several other reasons.

We affirm the trial court’s summary denial of the claim of involuntary plea relating to his medical treatments without further discussion.

On Adlington’s claim of scoresheet error, he argued that his Criminal Punishment Code scoresheet erroneously assessed him 9 points for trafficking in marijuana when in fact the prior offense should have been scored for his being an accessory to, or having committed conspiracy to traffic. He claims that he should have been assessed only 2.4 points for that level offense, and that if corrected, his lowest permissible sentence in the scoresheet would have been any non-state prison sanction.

We reject this claim under rule 3.800(a), since appellant has not alleged or shown that the trial court record demonstrates on its face his entitlement to relief. Toro v. State, 719 So. 2d 947 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998).

Applying the Supreme Court of Florida’s “would-have-been-imposed” harmless error test pronounced in State v. Anderson, 905 So. 2d 111 (Fla.2005), since appellant’s motion also invokes rule 3.850, we reject appellant’s claim of scoresheet error because it conclusively can be said that the trial court would have imposed the same sentence with the corrected score-sheet. See also Graham v. State, 920 So. 2d 1262 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006). Here, appellant contended that if the scoresheet had been corrected, the lowest permissible sentence would have been any non-state prison sanction. Even if true, his own allegations would have the court find that he agreed to at least a sentence of 24 months in prison followed by probation, to be reduced to 12 months in jail if he appeared in court on time. This still would have far exceeded the lowest permissible sentence he seeks to have stated in his scoresheet.

Because appellant agreed to a term of years in this case, we also reject his claim of trial court error in summarily denying his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to object to the same scoresheet error. He did not allege that he would not have entered his plea had he known of this error. See generally Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 106 S.Ct. 366, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985); Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).

As for Adlington’s final claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, we affirm its summary denial except for denial of his claim that he agreed to a 24 month sentence to be reduced to 12 months if he returned from furlough on time, but that counsel allowed this agreement to be changed to provide for a 36 month sentence instead, without his knowledge of or agreement to that change. We reverse the summary denial of that claim for an evidentiary hearing or record attachments refuting it.

Affirmed in Part, Reversed and Remanded in Part.

POLEN, GROSS and MAY, JJ„ concur.


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Citator

Cited By

  • Adlington v. State, 948 So. 2d 839 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007)
    …tion for post-conviction relief and three orders preceding it. We affirm the trial court’s order summarily denying his motion because it raised the same challenge the trial court had previously rejected and this Court affirmed in Adlington v. State, 931 So. 2d 1040 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006), regarding voluntariness of his plea relating to his medical treatment. In Adlington, this Court affirmed the summary denial of the claim of involuntary plea relating to promises of medical treatments, among other claims, but rev…
  • Jamaal Desrosiers v. State (Fla. 4th DCA 2019)
    …). Here, Desrosiers has shown and the State has conceded that the scoresheet was defective. However, the error is harmless because Desrosiers requested a four-year prison sentence, which amounts to more than 20.325 months. See Adlington v. State, 931 So. 2d 1040, 1042 (4th DCA 2006). It follows that the trial court would have imposed the same sentence even with a corrected scoresheet because Desrosiers agreed that his sentence should have been at least four years. Although the error is harmless, Desrosier…

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