ERNEST KING, APPELLANT,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Ernest King appealed his conviction and sentence for armed robbery, challenging whether the prior convictions used to impose habitual offender sentencing actually belonged to him or to another person named James Michael Collier. The court affirmed King's convictions but allowed him to raise the habitual offender sentencing issue through a Rule 3.800 petition in the trial court.
The court affirmed King's convictions but without prejudice, allowing King to raise the habitual offender sentencing issue through a properly filed Rule 3.800 petition in the trial court, where the trial court can consider the record and determine whether King was properly subject to habitual offender sentencing.
[1] A defendant may raise a claim that prior offenses used for habitual offender sentencing do not belong to him in a Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800 petition filed…
[2] A direct appeal is not the proper avenue to raise a post-conviction sentencing issue concerning the validity of prior offenses used for habitual offender status.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“King asserts that the cases the State used to prove his requisite prior offenses for habitual offender sentencing do not belong to Mr. King, but rather to a person named James Michael Collier. If so, King's sentencing as a habitual offender is in question.”
States the core factual dispute regarding whether the prior convictions belonged to King or another person.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceKing was charged in four separate cases with armed robbery with a firearm and faced life sentences. He accepted a plea offer for twenty years in state…
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Ernest King seeks a belated appeal from his judgment of conviction and sentence.1 We affirm King’s convictions, but without prejudice for King to raise the issue of incorrect habitual offender priors and sentencing in a Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800 petition filed properly in the trial court.
King was charged in four separate cases with armed robbery with a firearm,2 and faced a life sentence for each. The State noticed its intent to seek habitual offender sentencing. The record shows that King accepted the State’s offer of a plea to twenty years in state prison with a ten-year mandatory minimum in all four cases, *1003and for each mandatory minimum to be served concurrently. At that point, the State stepped in to prove that King had the requisite prior offenses to be sentenced as a habitual offender. King asserts that the cases the State used to prove his requisite prior offenses for habitual offender sentencing do not belong to Mr. King, but rather to a person named James Michael Collier. If so, King’s sentencing as a habitual offender is in question. The record before us does not appear to refute his claim. We affirm King’s convictions, but without prejudice so that he may raise this issue in the lower court via a properly filed rule 3.800 petition. The trial court then can consider the record and whether King was properly subject to habitual offender sentencing.
Affirmed.