DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA FOURTH DISTRICT STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellant, v. DANE STEPHENSON, Appellee. No. 4D21-332 [June 23, 2021] Appeal from the County Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County; Kal Evans, Judge; L.T. Case Nos. 14-007632-MM-10A and 20-000024-AC-10A. Harold F. Pryor, State Attorney, and Joanne Lewis, Assistant State Attorney, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant. No appearance for appellee. DAMOORGIAN, J. Appellant, State of Florida (“the State”), appeals an order from the county court granting a motion to vacate a plea entered by appellee, Dane Stephenson (“Defendant”). For the reasons discussed below, we reverse. By way of background, Defendant was charged with misdemeanor possession of cannabis in 2014. At his arraignment, Defendant was given the option by the State to accept a withhold of adjudication and pay court costs or attend a misdemeanor diversion program. Defendant, acting pro se, elected the first option and entered a plea of no contest to the charge. It is undisputed that the court did not conduct a plea colloquy, although it did recite the plea options. The court ultimately accepted Defendant’s plea, withheld adjudication, and ordered Defendant to pay court costs. In 2018, Defendant filed a motion to vacate his plea pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(b)(2). In his motion, Defendant alleged he was being deported back to Jamaica as a result of the plea and that “he would not have entered a plea, but instead, he would have proceeded to trial or drug court or diversion” had he been advised of his plea’s immigration consequences. Defendant argued that the plea and sentence must be vacated to prevent a manifest injustice because the court’s failure to advise him of the deportation consequences made his plea “not knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily entered.” At the hearing on the motion, the State argued the motion was time barred, and that Defendant failed to demonstrate the existence of a manifest injustice. Ultimately, the court found that a manifest injustice had occurred because of the complete absence of a plea colloquy advising Defendant of any of his rights and the consequences of entering his plea.1 This appeal follows. The State argues that, pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(b), Defendant’s motion to vacate was untimely and failed to establish one of the exceptions to the two-year time limit. See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.850(b) (noting that no motion “shall be filed or considered pursuant to this rule if filed more than 2 years after the judgment and sentence become final”). For much of the same reasons, the State also argues that Defendant failed to establish a manifest injustice. We agree. We begin by observing that Defendant’s rule 3.850 motion to vacate plea was untimely as it was filed more than two years after the judgment and sentence became final. As such, in order to be entitled to relief, Defendant was required to allege and establish one of the three exceptions to the two-year time limit provided in rule 3.850(b). Those exceptions …
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals