Matton v. State, 2D02-906.
| Citation | 872 So.2d 308 |
| Decision Date | 14 April 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 2D02-906.,2D02-906. |
| Parties | Ronald Lee MATTON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Corinda Luchetta, St. Petersburg, for Appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Timothy A. Freeland, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
Ronald Lee Matton challenges the denial of his motion for postconviction relief after an evidentiary hearing. In his motion, Matton contended that he should be allowed to withdraw his admission to a violation of probation because his counsel was ineffective for failing to advise him that he was entitled to credit for his previously accrued gain time and thus he agreed to a specific sentence without full knowledge of his rights. Matton also contended that his counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge victim injury points that were included on his sentencing guidelines scoresheet. Because the State did not refute Matton's testimony on either issue at the evidentiary hearing, we reverse and remand to allow Matton the opportunity to withdraw his plea.
In October 1989, Matton pleaded guilty to one count of sexual battery and one count of kidnaping for offenses which occurred on November 17, 1988. He was sentenced to twenty years' incarceration on the sexual battery count followed by ten years' probation on both the sexual battery count and the kidnaping count. The sentencing guidelines scoresheet prepared by the State for the original sentencing hearing included forty points for victim injury based on penetration during the sexual battery.
Matton was incarcerated for approximately nine years and was released to serve his probationary sentence in late 1997. In July 1998, he was charged with a violation of probation for changing his residence without permission. When the affidavit was filed, the trial court appointed counsel to represent Matton. Matton discussed the alleged probation violation and his sentencing guidelines scoresheet with counsel. Subsequently, Matton entered into a negotiated plea agreement with the State. As part of the negotiated plea, Matton admitted that he violated his terms of probation, and he agreed to a sentence of nineteen years in prison with nine years' credit for the time he had actually served on the sexual battery charge. The sentencing guidelines scoresheet used at the revocation hearing included the same forty points for victim injury, and Matton's counsel did not challenge the inclusion of these victim injury points. At the revocation hearing, Matton admitted during his plea colloquy that no promises had been made by either the court or counsel as to how much gain time credit he would receive once he returned to prison.
Following his sentencing on the violation of probation, Matton filed a series of inmate requests and grievances with the Department of Corrections (DOC) in an attempt to determine how much gain time he had accrued during his prior incarceration. According to the DOC's calculations, Matton had earned 4289 days' gain time credit during his prior incarceration in addition to the 3189 days' credit for time actually served. Although the DOC recognized that Matton had previously earned both gain time and incentive credit for which he was not being credited, the DOC took the position it could not award this earned credit unless the sentencing court directed it to do so in an amended sentencing order.
Matton then filed his rule 3.850 motion in the trial court, raising several claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. In that motion, Matton alleged that his counsel in the revocation proceedings was ineffective for failing to advise him that he was legally entitled to credit for his previously accrued gain time and that by agreeing to nine years' credit for actual time served, he was waiving his right to credit to which he was otherwise entitled. Matton also alleged that counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the victim injury points that were included on the sentencing scoresheet during the revocation proceedings. The trial court ordered an evidentiary hearing on both grounds.
At the evidentiary hearing, Matton's counsel testified that she believed that credit for gain time and credit for actual time served were two separate things, and she did not intend to preclude Matton's receiving his previously accrued gain time credit if he was entitled to it. She testified that the nine years' credit included in the plea agreement resulted from either an agreement that Matton had actually served nine years or was "a specific sentence that everyone agreed to as part of a negotiated plea." However, she could not recall what the agreement actually was, and she could not state with any certainty whether the nine years' credit was intended to be all the credit Matton would receive. She also testified it was not her policy to make promises regarding gain time because gain time calculations were the sole province of the DOC and that she had not discussed gain time at all with Matton. As to the victim injury points, counsel testified that she did not challenge those points because they had been on the original sentencing guidelines scoresheet and she did not believe that she could challenge them during the revocation proceedings.
Matton testified that counsel had not made any specific promises regarding the amount of gain time he would receive and had not had any discussions with him about the gain time he was entitled to receive. According to Matton, counsel told him that it was entirely up to the DOC to determine what gain time he would receive.
The trial court subsequently denied Matton's motion for postconviction relief. In its order, the court found that Matton had entered into a negotiated plea with a specific agreement as to the amount of credit to which he was entitled and that he had therefore waived his right to any additional credit to which he might otherwise be entitled. Based on that finding, the trial court held that counsel was not ineffective because Matton "made the decision to accept the negotiated sentence with full knowledge that there were no promises made by either the Court or counsel regarding gain time." In addition, the trial court found that counsel was not ineffective for failing to challenge the victim injury points because she "had no reason to question victim injury points that had been previously assessed at the original sentencing." Matton appeals both of these rulings.
Matton first contends that the trial court erred in finding that he had waived his right to his previously accrued statutory gain time. We agree. Under the law as it existed when Matton committed his offenses, neither the trial court nor the DOC could refuse to award previously accrued gain time to a defendant sentenced on a revocation of probation after having served the incarcerative portion of a true split sentence. See Eldridge v. Moore, 760 So.2d 888, 891 (Fla.2000)
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