Cesar Ruiz v. the State of Florida

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: January 2, 2025
• Docket: 3D2022-0499
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed January 2, 2025. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

No. 3D22-499 Lower Tribunal No. F07-22156 B ________________

Cesar Ruiz, Appellant,

vs.

The State of Florida, Appellee.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Cristina Miranda, Judge.

Daniel J. Tibbitt, P.A., and Daniel Tibbitt, for appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Kayla Heather McNab, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before FERNANDEZ, LOBREE and GOODEN, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Affirmed. See Smith v. State, 931 So. 2d 790, 807 (Fla. 2006) (“[Defendant] has no due process right to require his counsel to aid in the

commission of a fraud upon the court by presenting perjurious testimony.”

(citing DeHaven v. State, 618 So. 2d 337, 339 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993) (stating

that defendant’s constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel does

not include right to require counsel to commit fraud on court))); cf. Nix v.

Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157, 173–74 (1986) (“[T]he right to counsel includes no

right to have a lawyer who will cooperate with planned perjury. A lawyer who

would so cooperate would be at risk of prosecution for suborning perjury,

and disciplinary proceedings, including suspension or disbarment.

[Counsel’s] admonitions to [her] client can in no sense be said to have forced

[defendant] into an impermissible choice between his right to counsel and

his right to testify as he proposed for there was no permissible choice to

testify falsely. For defense counsel to take steps to persuade a criminal

defendant to testify truthfully, or to withdraw, deprives the defendant of

neither his right to counsel nor the right to testify truthfully.”).