Opinion
Case No. 2D19-1144
01-06-2021
Stanley Bernard WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Pamela H. Izakowitz, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Jonathan S. Tannen, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Pamela H. Izakowitz, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Jonathan S. Tannen, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
BY ORDER OF THE COURT:
Appellant's motion for written opinion is granted. The prior opinion dated August 19, 2020, is withdrawn, and the attached opinion is issued in its place. No further motions filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.330 will be entertained.
I HEREBY CERTIFY THE FOREGOING IS A TRUE COPY OF THE ORIGINAL COURT ORDER.
MARY ELIZABETH KUENZEL, CLERK
PER CURIAM.
Stanley Williams seeks a written opinion of this court's per curiam affirmance that was issued without a written opinion. The order on appeal is affirmed, and we address only the concerns raised by Mr. Williams in his motion.
In 1980, Mr. Williams pleaded no contest to (count 1) attempted first-degree murder, a life felony; (count 2) attempted first-degree murder, a life felony; (count 3) attempted first-degree murder, a life felony; (count 4) kidnapping, a life felony; (count 5) robbery, a life felony; (count 6) robbery, a life felony; (count 7) aggravated battery, a second-degree felony; (count 8) sexual battery, a life felony; and (count 9) trespass with a firearm, a third-degree felony. He was ultimately sentenced to life in prison with a mandatory three-year sentence on counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8; on count 7, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison; on count 9, he was sentenced to five years in prison. The sentences on all counts run concurrently. Mr. Williams was seventeen when he committed the crimes. Under the then existing statutes, Mr. Williams was eligible for parole.
On September 6, 2017, Mr. Williams filed a motion to correct illegal sentence under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a), arguing in light of Atwell v. State, 197 So. 3d 1040 (Fla. 2016), his life sentences with the possibility of parole for nonhomicide crimes committed while he was a juvenile were illegal and he was entitled to resentencing. Mr. Williams also filed a motion requesting the appointment of postconviction counsel. The postconviction court held a status hearing on October 2, 2017, where the court granted Mr. Williams' motion for appointment of postconviction counsel and appointed the public defender to represent Mr. Williams. The only written orders rendered after the October 2, 2017, hearing was an order appointing counsel and a provisional order appointing the public defender, conditioned upon Mr. Williams' filing a financial affidavit and a final determination of indigent status.
Over the next year the parties prepared for Mr. Williams' resentencing hearing, but no resentencing hearing was held. During this time, the Florida Supreme Court issued its decisions in State v. Michel, 257 So. 3d 3 (Fla. 2018), and Franklin v. State, 258 So. 3d 1239 (Fla. 2018), receding, in part, from its decision in Atwell and holding that a juvenile offender's sentence of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole does not violate the Eighth Amendment. These decisions prompted the State to file a motion requesting that the postconviction court deny Mr. Williams' motion to correct illegal sentence based on the intervening decisions of Michel and Franklin. Following a hearing on January 30, 2019, the postconviction court entered a written order on February 12, 2019, denying Mr. Williams' motion to correct illegal sentence based on Michel and Franklin.
On appeal Mr. Williams challenges the order denying his motion to correct illegal sentence arguing, in pertinent part, that the postconviction court granted his motion to correct illegal sentence at the October 2, 2017, hearing and lacked jurisdiction to reconsider its ruling where the State failed to appeal from the ruling granting his motion to correct illegal sentence.
We review issues of jurisdiction and the constitutionality of a sentence under a de novo review. Nelms v. State, 263 So. 3d 88, 90 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019) ; Baldwin v. State, 20 So. 3d 991, 992 (Fla. 1st DCA 2009). In the instant case, a review of the transcript from the October 2, 2017, status hearing reveals—contrary to Mr. Williams' assertion on appeal—the postconviction court did not grant Mr. Williams' motion to correct illegal sentence. The merits of Mr. Williams' motion were not discussed and the postconviction court certainly did not announce any ruling on Mr. Williams' motion to correct illegal sentence or grant him any relief other than the appointment of postconviction counsel.
We acknowledge there is a split in the decisions of the district courts of appeal as to whether an order granting a rule 3.800(a) motion, prior to resentencing occurring, is a final, appealable order and whether the postconviction court retains jurisdiction to reconsider its ruling granting the motion prior to resentencing. Compare Morgan v. State, 293 So. 3d 1081 (Fla. 2d DCA 2020), review granted, No. SC20-641, 2020 WL 3494396 (Fla. June 29, 2020) (holding order granting defendant's motion to correct illegal sentence but not yet resentencing defendant was not a final, appealable order and the postconviction court retained jurisdiction and could vacate its grant of relief prior to resentencing), and Rogers v. State, 296 So. 3d 500 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020) (same), with Jones v. State, 279 So. 3d 172 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019) (holding that orders granting rule 3.800(a) motions are appealable by the State prior to resentencing and where no appeal is taken, the trial court loses jurisdiction to reconsider its ruling), and Magill v. State, 287 So. 3d 1262 (Fla. 5th DCA 2019) (same).
However, Mr. Williams' case is distinguishable from these cases in one significant way: the postconviction court never granted, let alone rendered a written order on, Mr. Williams' motion to correct illegal sentence. The postconviction court was, therefore, not reconsidering any prior ruling when it denied Mr. Williams' motion on February 12, 2019. Because the postconviction court had not yet ruled upon Mr. Williams' motion to correct illegal sentence, it was bound by the intervening cases of Michel and Franklin and properly denied Mr. Williams' motion. See Smith v. State, 598 So. 2d 1063, 1066 (Fla. 1992) ("[A]ny decision of [the supreme court] announcing a new rule of law, or merely applying an established rule of law to a new or different factual situation, must be given retrospective application by the courts of this state in every case pending on direct review or not yet final." (citing art. I, §§ 9, 16, Fla. Const.)); see also Davis v. State, 287 So. 3d 586 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019) (distinguishing this case from those in which the appellate court has held that the lower court lacked jurisdiction to reconsider an earlier order granting resentencing because in Davis, the lower court did not enter an order granting the motion for resentencing and because there was no final order granting resentencing, the lower court was not required to resentence the defendant) (emphasis added).
Accordingly, because there was no ruling or written order on Mr. Williams' motion to correct illegal sentence prior to the Florida Supreme Court's decisions in Michel and Franklin and because Mr. Williams' juvenile life with the possibility of parole sentence is not illegal under the law as it now stands, we affirm the denial of Mr. Williams' motion to correct illegal sentence.
Affirmed.
KELLY, MORRIS, and SMITH, JJ., Concur.