LUIS GASTON, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 2014-06-11
No. 4D13-2784
MAY, GERBER and LEVINE, JJ., concur.
141 So. 3d 627 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2014) Positive Treatment
Cited by 12 cases

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.


Holding

The court held that while the post-conviction motion was untimely, the order barring future pro se filings was an abuse of discretion.


Headnotes

[1] A scrivener's error in a written judgment may be corrected to conform to the terms of a plea agreement, even if the post-conviction motion raising the error is otherwise…

[2] A criminal pro se litigant may be barred from filing future pleadings only in extreme circumstances, such as repeated filing of successive, frivolous, and meritless claim…

Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

Defendant appealed the denial of his post-conviction motion and an order barring him from future pro se filings. The motion concerned a discrepancy be…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant appeals the summary denial of his motion filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850, and the trial court’s order prohibiting him from filing further pro se motions. We affirm the denial of the rule 3.850 motion, but remand for the limited correction of a scrivener’s error as discussed below. We reverse the trial court’s order prohibiting Defendant from filing future pro se pleadings.

Defendant was charged with committing three offenses, including attempted felony murder in the first degree. In exchange *628for his plea, the State agreed to reduce that offense to attempted felony murder in the second degree. The plea form described the reduced offense as attempted felony murder in the second degree. During the plea colloquy, the court and the parties repeatedly described the reduced offense as attempted felony murder in the second degree. However, at one point during the colloquy, the trial court omitted the word “felony” and described the offense as “attempted second degree murder.” The latter offense was reflected on the written judgment. Defendant did not file a direct appeal, but he filed a postcon-viction motion under rule 8.800(a) and one under rule 3.850.

The instant motion was Defendant’s second rule 3.850 motion, and his third post-conviction motion ever filed. He argued that he was entitled to relief under rule 3.850 based on newly discovered evidence. Particularly, he claimed that he discovered in 2009 that the written judgment reflected a conviction for attempted second degree murder instead of attempted second degree felony murder. He also argued that the court committed a manifest injustice by accepting a plea for an uncharged offense. The trial court summarily denied the motion as untimely and issued an order to show cause to Defendant as to why he should not be prohibited from filing future pro se motions pursuant to State v. Spencer, 751 So.2d 47 (Fla.1999). After receiving his response, the court barred Defendant from future pro se filings.

With regard to the rule 3.850 motion, we agree that the motion was untimely filed and that the newly discovered evidence exception did not apply since the written judgment was available before the two-year deadline had expired. See Schultheis v. State, 125 So.3d 932 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013). Therefore, we affirm the lower court’s ruling. Nevertheless, we understand why the discrepancy between the written judgment and Defendant’s plea form has caused some confusion. Based on the transcripts, the plea form, Defendant’s motion, and the State’s response, it is clear that the parties agreed to a reduced charge of attempted second degree felony murder. Therefore, the omission of the word “felony” on the judgment appears to be a scrivener’s error that warrants correction. The State has no objection. Accordingly, we remand to the lower court for the limited purpose of correcting this scrivener’s error on the judgment so that it is consistent with the terms of the plea agreement.

Furthermore, we find that the trial court abused its discretion in barring Defendant from further pro se filings after his third postconviction motion. Florida courts have long recognized the need for judicial economy and the importance of curtailing the egregious abuse of judicial processes. See, e.g., Bivins v. State, 35 So.3d 67 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010). Nevertheless, barring a criminal pro se litigant from filing future petitions has been described as an “extreme remedy” which should be reserved for those who have repeatedly filed successive, frivolous, and meritless claims which were not advanced in good faith. See Martin v. Stewart, 588 So.2d 996 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991); see also Mims v. State, 994 So.2d 1233 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008).

In this case, Defendant previously filed a rule 3.800(a) motion and a timely rule 3.850 motion. Although those motions did not succeed, the issues raised were not successive or repetitive and they appeared to have been advanced in good faith. See Jordan v. State, 36 So.3d 796 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010) (vacating order barring appellant from future pro se filings because his second rule 3.800(a) motion contained issues not previously raised and was not successive).

*629Moreover, the instant claim, although untimely, was grounded on a clear and undisputed discrepancy in the record which had not been previously raised or addressed on the merits. While there is no bright line rule on the maximum number of filings a pro se litigant can make before he is barred, we do not think that the three filings in this case justify such a serious sanction. Therefore, we reverse the trial court’s order prohibiting Defendant from filing any future pro se pleadings.

Affirmed in fart, reversed in part, and remanded.

MAY, GERBER and LEVINE, JJ., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Garcia v. State, 212 So. 3d 479 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017)
    …iled by an attorney and the other two filed pro se, does not rise to the level of being an egregious abuse of the judicial process which would warrant barring Garcia from filing future petitions of merit. As stated by the Court in Gaston v. State, 141 So. 3d 627, 628-29 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014): “Florida courts have long recognized the need for judicial economy and the importance of curtailing the egregious abuse of judicial processes. Nevertheless, barring a criminal pro se litigant from filing future petitions…
  • Roland v. State, 267 So. 3d 449 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019)
    …ree that Roland’s repetition of this meritless claim was frivolous. But, this Court has recognized that prohibiting all pro se filing is considered an “extreme remedy” for “curtailing the egregious abuse of judicial processes.” Gaston v. State, 141 So. 3d 627, 628 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014); see also Bivins v. State, 35 So. 3d 67, 69 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010) (reversing a prohibition on further pro se filing where the defendant filed a single pro se motion raising a variation of an issue that the trial court alre…
  • Quintero v. State, 218 So. 3d 995 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017)
    …proper motion to mitigate sentence. The record does not support the trial court’s determination that Quintero abused the postconviction process in case number 08-32265. See, e.g., Garcia v. State, 212 So. 3d 479 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017); Gaston v. State, 141 So. 3d 627 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014). We therefore reverse that portion of the order that prohibits Quintero from proceeding pro se in circuit court case number 08-32265. We affirm the trial court’s order in all other respects. Affirmed in part and reversed in part…

Previewing 3 of 6 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw