STATE OF FLORIDA, PETITIONER,
v.
OTIS WOODEN, RESPONDENT
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The Florida Supreme Court affirmed a District Court decision granting Otis Wooden a delayed direct appeal after his court-appointed counsel refused to file an appeal. The Court clarified the proper procedural mechanism for raising claims of deprivation of direct appeal (habeas corpus rather than Rule 1.850 motions) and rejected the state's contention that appointed counsel may refuse to appeal cases lacking merit, requiring compliance with Anders v. California standards instead.
Habeas corpus, not Rule 1.850 motions, is the proper remedy for claims of deprivation of direct appeal because trial courts lack jurisdiction to grant delayed appeals to appellate courts. Court-appointed counsel cannot simply refuse to appeal based on a determination that the appeal lacks merit; instead, counsel must comply with Anders v. California by filing a brief identifying any arguably meritorious issues and allowing the defendant to respond before the appellate court decides if the appeal is frivolous.
[1] Deprivation of a direct appeal is properly raised by petition for writ of habeas corpus, not by motion to vacate judgment and sentence pursuant to Criminal Procedure Rule…
[2] A trial court cannot grant a delayed appeal because it lacks the power to order appellate courts to do so.
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“A trial judge may correct any error going to the validity of the judgment and sentence. If an error invalidating a judgment and/or sentence is discovered, the trial judge has power under the rule to vacate and set aside the judgment and sentence and to order a new trial or discharge the prisoner. But what is a trial judge to do if he discovers that a defendant's right to a direct appeal has been frustrated? Clearly, he cannot enter an order granting a delayed appeal in the appropriate District Court or the Supreme Court, because he has no power over these courts and such an order would not be binding upon them.”
Establishes the jurisdictional limitation on Rule 1.850 remedies and why habeas corpus is the proper vehicle for deprivation of appeal claims.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceWooden was convicted of rape and sentenced to 30 years. His court-appointed counsel refused his request for appeal, stating no meritorious grounds exi…
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Respondent was convicted of rape and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was advised of his right to appeal, but his court-appointed counsel refused his request for reasons of professional judgment, among which was counsel’s conclusion that no meritorious ground for appeal existed. No appeal was taken.
By petition for writ of habeas corpus directed to the First District Court of Appeal [Wooden v. State, 236 So.2d 137 (Fla.App. 1st, 1970] respondent alleged that his right to a direct appeal had been frustrated by state action and sought, under Baggett v. Wainwright, 229 So.2d 239 (Fla.1969), delayed appellate review. The District Court, citing Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 83 S.Ct. 814 9 L.Ed.2d *756811 (1963) agreed that Wooden had been deprived of a direct appeal by the action of his court-appointed attorney and granted a delayed appeal. We do not quarrel with this result.
However, in the course of its opinion, the District Court made the following statement:
“The question which we have here entertained by reason of Wooden’s petition for writ of habeas corpus is more properly presented by a motion to vacate judgment and sentence pursuant to Criminal Procedure Rule 1.850. However, since the return of the State, * * * reflects without contradiction that Wooden was deprived of a direct appeal * * * we conclude that the administration of justice will best be served by granting relief in this extraordinary proceeding.”
Both sides agree that this language is in direct conflict with Powe v. State, 216 So.2d 446 (Fla.1968) and Baggett v. Wainwright, supra, wherein we concluded that the proper method for raising the issue of deprivation of direct appeal was by petition for habeas corpus, not by petition pursuant to Criminal Rule 1.850, 33 F.S.A. Upon review of these decisions we reaffirm our position in Powe and Baggett and expressly overrule the language in the opinion of the District Court leading to a contrary conclusion.
In so doing, we note with consternation that the Florida decisions construing Rule 1.850 do not adequately explain the theoretical basis for the remedy and the reason why a Rule 1.850 petition is not appropriate to raise deprivation of appeal. In interests of clarity and certainty, therefore, we undertake an explanation at this time.
Following the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963), Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and numerous others, the habeas corpus remedy in Florida underwent a virtual rebirth among practitioners who discovered it to be the most useful tool available to remedy constitutional errors at the trial level. At the same time, however, ha-beas corpus proved to be a cumbersome tool for the appellate courts to work with, primarily because the majority of habeas corpus petitions required factual determinations which the appellate courts were not equipped to make without appointment of a commissioner and temporary relinquishment of jurisdiction.
It was primarily as a remedy for this problem that Rule 1.850 was promulgated. See Roy v. Wainwright, 151 So.2d 825 (Fla.1963); Reddick v. State, 190 So.2d 340 (Fla.App. 2nd, 1966); Tolar v. State, 196 So.2d 1 (Fla.App. 4th, 1967); and Smith v. State, 176 So.2d 383 (Fla.App. 3rd, 1965). Essentially, the Rule provides a method by which allegations formerly raised by petition for habeas corpus directed to the appropriate District Court may now be raised in the trial court which entered judgment and sentence; if an evi-dentiary hearing is necessary, it is a simple matter for a trial judge to provide one. Johnson v. State, 184 So.2d 161 (Fla.1966), rehearing 185 So.2d 466 (1966).
In view of the acknowledged purpose of Rule 1.850 to facilitate factual determinations, it will be supposed that therein lies the distinction between proceedings under the Rule and petitions for habeas corpus. But such is not the case. On petition for habeas corpus an appellate court may still appoint a commissioner to make factual findings if that measure is found to be necessary. A case in point frequently arises where a petitioner alleges deprivation of his right of direct appeal. See Hollingshead v. Wainwright, 194 So.2d 577 (Fla.1967); Baggett v. Wainwright, supra; and State ex rel. Gaines v. Wainwright, 233 So.2d 174 (Fla.App. 2nd, 1970).
In reality, the limitation on the scope of Rule 1.850 with which we are *757concerned here, is jurisdictional. A trial court may consider under the Rule those fundamental errors which it has power to correct, errors arising in the trial process itself. Stated another way, a trial judge may correct any error going to the validity of the judgment and sentence. If an error invalidating a judgment and/or sentence'is discovered, the trial judge has power under the rule to vacate and set aside the judgment and sentence and to order a new trial or discharge the prisoner.
But what is a trial judge to do if he discovers that a defendant’s right to a direct appeal has been frustrated? Clearly, he cannot enter an order granting a delayed appeal in the appropriate District Court or the Supreme Court, because he has no power over these courts and such an order would not be binding upon them. Nor can he set the judgment and sentence aside because a finding of frustration of direct appeal does not bring into question the validity of the judgment and sentence.
However, the appellate court which would have been empowered to hear the direct appeal could clearly grant a defendant a delayed appeal in appropriate circumstances through the remedy of habeas corpus. Baggett v. Wainwright, supra.
We also observe that the habeas corpus remedy at the appellate level does not carry with it the jurisdictional problems associated with Rule 1.8S0. It is true that ha-beas corpus is no longer available in those situations where Rule 1.850 provides adequate relief, but this is a limitation set up in Rule 1.850 itself which does not rest on jurisdictional grounds:
“An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a prisoner who is authorized to apply for relief by motion pursuant to this rule, shall not be entertained if it appears that the applicant has failed to apply for relief, by motion, to the court which sentenced him, or that such court has denied him relief, unless it also appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.”
A second problem posed by the instant case concerns the State’s allegation that court-appointed counsel is not required to take an appeal which has no merit. For this proposition the State refers us to the following language in Frizzell v. State, 238 So.2d 67, 70 (Fla.1970):
“Private counsel is not required to prosecute an appeal without the payment of a fee and the advice of the public defender not to appeal * * * was probably good advice. * * * The public defender’s office is not required to appeal a case which has no merit. * * * ”
Clearly, the State has correctly interpreted Frizzell. Were we to follow the quoted language, we would be required to reverse the District Court in the instant case and hold that respondent’s right to appeal was not frustrated by state action. But, as even the State admits, the quoted language from Frizzell is no longer a correct statement of the law. As we said in Baggett v. Wainwright, supra:
“A chain of decisions subsequent to Douglas v. California, supra, culminating in Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967), makes it quite clear that the requirement of Douglas is not necessarily met simply by the appointment of counsel to represent an indigent defendant on appeal. The Anders case raised to constitutional proportion certain minimum, requirements imposed on a court-appointed counsel who considers his client’s appeal to he frivolous.” (Emphasis added)
Among the minimum requirements imposed on court-appointed counsel by the Anders decision, are the following:
“ * * * if counsel finds his [defendant’s] case to be wholly frivolous after a conscientious examination of it, he should so advise the court and request permission to withdraw. That request *758must, however, be accompanied by a brief referring to anything in the record that might arguably support the appeal. A copy of counsel’s brief should be furnished the indigent and time allowed him to raise any points that he chooses; the court — not counsel — then proceeds, after a full examination of all the proceedings, to decide whether the case is wholly frivolous.”
In light of Anders v. California, supra, and Baggett v. Wainwright, supra, therefore, we hereby recede from the language in Frizzell v. State, supra, suggesting that court-appointed counsel need not appeal a case which he determines is without merit.
Accordingly, the decision of the District Court is affirmed in part and reversed in part and the cause remanded to the District Court for the purpose of granting respondent a full appeal.
Affirmed in part; reversed in part.
ROBERTS, C. J., and ERVIN, BOYD and DREW (Retired) JJ., concur.
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Cited By (19 total)
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State v. Dist. Court of Appeal of Fla., 569 So. 2d 439 (Fla. 1990)…f state action was extended in Costello v. State, 246 So. 2d 752 (Fla.1971), to permit a defendant, who contended that his court-appointed attorney failed to timely file a notice of appeal, to follow the same procedure. Further, in State v. Wooden, 246 So. 2d 755 (Fla.1971), this Court rejected a suggestion by the First District Court of Appeal that when an indigent defendant had been deprived of his right of appeal by the conduct of his counsel it was more appropriate to file a motion for postconviction rel…
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Jenkins v. Louie L. Wainwright, 322 So. 2d 477 (Fla. 1975)…sion but also from the District Court’s decision on the petition for habeas corpus filed therein. Because of this failure, the merits of the issue were never presented on appeal. See Rahming v. Wainwright, 276 So. 2d 474 (Fla.1973); State v. Wooden, 246 So. 2d 755 (Fla.1971); Hollingshead v. Wainwright, supra. Absent this clear lack of proper representation by counsel, this Court would not have the authority to consider the merits of this petition. We could remand this cause to the District Court for its dete…
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Carroll v. State, 251 So. 2d 665 (Fla. 1971)…PER CURIAM. Withdrawal of court-appointed counsel after the filing of a brief under Anders v. California is within the sound discretion of the appellate court. State v. Wooden, 246 So. 2d 755 (Fla.1971); Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967). Certiorari denied. ROBERTS, C. J., and ERVIN, CARLTON, ADKINS and DEKLE, JJ., concur.…
Previewing 3 of 19 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited (16 total)
- Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (U.S. 1966)
- Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (U.S. 1967)
- Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (U.S. 1963)
- Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353 (U.S. 1963)
- Baggett v. Louie L. Wainwright, 229 So. 2d 239 (Fla. 1969)
- Cleveland Hollingshead v. Louie L. Wainwright, 194 So. 2d 577 (Fla. 1967)
- Jetson ROY v. Louie L. Wainwright, 151 So. 2d 825 (Fla. 1963)
- Reddick v. State, 190 So. 2d 340 (Fla. 2d DCA 1966)
- Powe v. State, 216 So. 2d 446 (Fla. 1968)
- Tolar v. State, 196 So. 2d 1 (Fla. 4th DCA 1967)