DAVID L. DAVIES, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 5th DCA | 2006-07-21
No. 5D05-3429
PLEUS, C.J. and MONACO, J., concur.
934 So. 2d 606 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (2006) Caution
Cited by 4 cases
Topics
Abatement Of Proceedings Finality Of Conviction Motion For Return Of Property

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Opinion of the Court
GRIFFIN, J.

GRIFFIN, J.

This is the appeal of the trial court’s denial of Davies’ motion for return of property seized pursuant to a criminal investigation. Davies pled to the charges and filed a motion for return of his property. He subsequently appealed his conviction. While the appeal was pending, the trial court denied the motion, correctly concluding that until the conviction was final, the defendant was not entitled to have the property returned. The conviction subsequently was affirmed.

Although it seems sensible to simply abate the trial court proceedings concerning the property until the judgment becomes final, in Sutherland v. State, 860 So. 2d 505 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003), the court approved an outright denial. The trial court correctly followed Sutherland, but we think abatement in these circumstances would simplify issues of timeliness on the claimant’s part and would avoid useless proceedings here and below. We accordingly remand this case to the trial court to reconsider the motion now that the conviction has been affirmed.

REMANDED.

PLEUS, C.J. and MONACO, J., concur.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Citator

Cited By

  • Rightmire v. State, 1 So. 3d 1191 (Fla. 1st DCA 2009)
    …l of his judgment of conviction was pending; however, now that the direct appeal has been resolved, Rightmire v. State, 987 So. 2d 83 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), we now remand the case to the trial court below to reconsider the motion. See Davies v. State, 934 So. 2d 606 (Fla. 5th DCA 2006). REMANDED. VAN NORTWICK and PADOVANO, JJ., and LAWRENCE, JR., L. ARTHUR, Senior Judge, concur.…
  • Gonzalez v. State, 152 So. 3d 69 (Fla. 3d DCA 2014)
    …rty. . Gonzalez argues that because his criminal conviction in case number FI 1-28885 is currently on direct appeal, the trial court should have abated the motion for return of property pending the outcome of his direct appeal. See Davies v. State, 934 So. 2d 606 (Fla. 5th DCA 2006). However, the returned property was not related to, or held as evidence for, the case in which Gonzalez was convicted (and is currently appealing). Rather, the order directed return of property stemming from an earlier offense in…

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