Watson v. State, 91-2095
| Decision Date | 30 September 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-2095,91-2095 |
| Citation | 605 So.2d 581 |
| Parties | 17 Fla. L. Week. D2251 Richard WATSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Scott Armstrong, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Patricia G. Lampert, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellee.
Defendant, Richard Watson, appeals the summary denial of his 3.850 motion, Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, to vacate his sentence. 1 We reverse.
The defendant, charged with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of an accident after committing vehicular homicide, elected to change his plea to guilty at his status conference hearing. A few weeks prior to this hearing, the state had filed notice of its intent to seek habitual offender status. During the plea colloquy, the trial court advised the defendant about the maximum statutory penalties as follows:
THE COURT: The maximum penalty as you heard here for vehicular homicide, leaving the scene, is fifteen years in prison with a maximum penalty for vehicular homicide. [C]ount two would be five years.
The court did not mention the possibility of an enhanced sentence pursuant to the habitual offender statute, section 775.084, Florida Statutes (1991). The defendant pleaded guilty and was later sentenced, in a subsequent proceeding, to thirty-five years imprisonment as a habitual offender (five years for the vehicular homicide and thirty years for leaving the scene of an accident after committing a vehicular homicide).
Thereupon, the defendant filed this 3.850 motion to vacate his sentence alleging, in part, that his guilty pleas were not voluntarily entered because the trial court had erroneously advised him, at the time he entered his pleas, that the maximum penalty would be twenty years.
In Brown v. State, 585 So.2d 350 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991), the trial court advised Brown, during his plea colloquy, that it could choose to sentence him to a maximum of twenty-two years imprisonment under the guidelines or as a habitual offender. However, Brown was not informed that his sentence under the habitual offender statute was life imprisonment without possibility of parole. He pled guilty and was subsequently sentenced to such.
On appeal, this court held that the trial court reversibly erred by not informing Brown of the significance and true consequence of his guilty plea: a maximum penalty of life imprisonment without possibility of parole.
In this...
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