JABARI MARKEITH HIRD, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 5th DCA | 2016-07-15
No. 5D15-4408
SAWAYA and EVANDER, JJ., concur.
204 So. 3d 483 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (2016) Positive Treatment
Cited by 17 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 the lower court erred in summarily denying one ground of the defendant's motion for post-conviction relief, as the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel due to entering a plea while medicated was facially sufficient and not conclusively refuted by the record.


Headnotes

[1] A post-conviction court's summary denial of a motion for post-conviction relief is reviewed de novo.

[2] To uphold the summary denial of a post-conviction motion, the claims must be either facially invalid or conclusively refuted by the record.

Previewing 2 of 5 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

Appellant sought post-conviction relief, alleging his counsel was ineffective for allowing him to enter a nolo contendere plea while he was under the …

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
EDWARDS, J.

EDWARDS, J.

Appellant, Jabari Hird, appeals the post-conviction' court’s summary denial of his Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 motion. - Appellant’s amended motion asserted, in four separate grounds, that he was prejudiced by the ineffective assistance of his counsel in connection with the entry of a nolo contendere plea. We affirm the lower court’s summary denial of grounds two, three, and four. We find, and the State concedes, that the lower court erred in summarily denying ground one of Appellant’s motion. We reverse that portion of the order and remand for the postconvietion court to either attach records that conclusively refute Appellant’s claim or, if such records are not available, to conduct an evidentiary hearing.

“The standard of review of a summary denial of a rule 3.850 motion is de novo.” Lebron v. State, 100 So.3d 132, 133 (Fla. 5th DCA 2012) (citing McLin v. State, 827 So.2d 948, 954 (Fla.2002)). To uphold the summary denial, “the claims must be either facially invalid or conclusively refuted by the record.” Peede v. State, 748 So.2d 253, 257 (Fla.1999) (citing Fla. R. Grim. P. 3.850(d)); see also Freeman v. State, 761 So.2d 1055, 1061 (Fla. 2000) (“[A] defendant is entitled to an evi-dentiary hearing on a postconviction relief motion unless (1) the motion, files, and records in the case conclusively show that the [defendant] is entitled to no relief, or (2) the motion or a particular claim is legally insufficient.” (citations omitted)). “[W]here no evidentiary hearing is held *485below, we must accept the defendant’s factual allegations to the extent they are not refuted by the record.” Peede, 748 So.2d at 257 (citing Lightbourne v. Dugger, 549 So.2d 1364, 1365 (Fla.1989)).

In ground one of his amended motion, Appellant alleged that his trial attorney allowed Appellant to enter a plea despite knowing that he was under the influence of antipsychotic medication. Appellant asserted that he informed defense counsel and provided medical documents that confirmed that the medications were negatively affecting him to the extent that he did not understand what was occurring. Appellant also alleged that he was hearing voices and hallucinating at his plea hearing and could not stand without assistance. Further, in an affidavit, Appellant’s brother stated that he spoke with defense counsel about Appellant’s mental health issues and use of antipsychotic medication. Appellant’s motion essentially claimed that counsel misadvised him to enter a plea while he was substantively incompetent and that but for the ineffective assistance of counsel, he would have insisted on a trial instead of pleading nolo, contendere. See Thompson v. State, 88 So.3d 312, 316 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012).

Ground one of Appellant’s amended motion set forth a facially sufficient claim. See Jackson v. State, 29 So.3d 1161, 1162 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010) (concluding defendant’s claim was facially sufficient where the defendant “allege[d] that he was incompetent and did not understand the consequences of his plea, that he had a history of mental illness, had not taken his schizophrenia medication, was suffering from delusions and hearing voices at the time of the plea and that he informed counsel of his condition”).

Further, the record does not conclusively refute Appellant’s claim. In Saunders v. State, 148 So.3d 843 (Fla. 5th DCA 2014), “the defendant asserted that his trial counsel was ineffective for permitting him to enter an involuntary plea due to his mental illness and use of medication.” 148 So.3d at 844. This Court reversed the summary denial because “the record [did] not include a transcript of the plea hearing from which [the] court [could] determine whether the defendant voluntarily entered his plea” or “whether the defendant was taking medications at the time of his plea, and whether those medications interfered with his ability to enter his plea knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily.” Id.

Similarly, here, the lower court did not attach transcripts of the plea or sentencing hearings or the waiver of rights form, which might have established whether the issue of Appellant’s medications, mental health, and competency to enter his plea were ever addressed. We reverse that part of the order that summarily denied the claim for relief set forth as ground one, and remand for the postconviction court to either attach records which conclusively refute that claim, or if such records are not available, to conduct an evidentiary hearing. See Burgos v. State, 181 So.3d 572 (Fla. 5th DCA 2015).

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.

SAWAYA and EVANDER, JJ., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By (11 total)

  • Turem v. State, 220 So. 3d 504 (Fla. 5th DCA 2017)
    …1 So. 3d 975, 976 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010)). Here, although Turem’s allegations and theories of ineffective assistance of counsel on this claim encompassed several grounds, we conclude that Turem set forth one facially sufficient claim. See Hird v. State, 204 So. 3d 483, 485 (Fla. 5th DCA 2016) (citing Jackson v. State, 29 So. 3d 1161, 1162 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010) (concluding that a defendant’s claim was facially sufficient where the defendant “allege[d] that he was incompetent and did not understand the consequences o…
  • Jude B. Lahens v. State, 204 So. 3d 982 (Fla. 5th DCA 2016)
    …ither facially invalid or conclusively refuted by the record.” Peede v. State, 748 So. 2d 253, 257 (Fla. 1999) (citing Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.850(d)); see also Freeman v. State, 761 So. 2d 1055, 1061 (Fla. 2000). Hird v. State, 41 Fla. L. Weekly D1638, 204 So. 3d 483, 2016 WL 3854819 (Fla. 5th DCA July 15, 2016). The defendant first contends that the post-conviction court erred in summarily denying his claim that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to a flawed jury instruction on the justifiable…
  • Tray C. Rudolph v. State (Fla. 5th DCA 2018)

Previewing 3 of 11 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