Luis Sanchez v. the State of Florida

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: September 18, 2024
• Docket: 3D2022-0817
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed September 18, 2024. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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Nos. 3D22-0817 & 3D22-2097 Lower Tribunal Nos. F94-39773 & F94-39774

Luis Sanchez, Appellant,

vs.

The State of Florida, Appellee.

Appeals from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Carmen Cabarga, Judge.

Luis Sanchez, in proper person.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Ivy R. Ginsberg, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before LOGUE, C.J., and LINDSEY and BOKOR, JJ.

LOGUE, C.J.

Appellant appeals a 2022 order denying his motion to withdraw his

guilty plea entered in 1996. In 1996, in two separate lower court cases, Appellant pled guilty to a series of crimes including grand theft of a motor

vehicle, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, discharging a firearm

from a vehicle, tampering with a witness, armed robbery, and aggravated

assault. He received numerous sentences including eight concurrent fifteen-

year sentences and five concurrent life sentences.

Among the sentences was five-years for grand theft of a vehicle. This

sentence included a three-year minimum mandatory condition pursuant to

section 775.087(2), Florida Statutes, due to his status as a Habitual Violent

Felony Offender. In 2022, after Appellant had completed this sentence but

while he was still serving his remaining sentences, Appellant moved to strike

the mandatory condition on his sentence for grand theft of a motor vehicle

on the grounds that crime was not an offense enumerated in section

775.087(2). The trial court granted his motion and struck the mandatory

condition. No other sentence was changed. There was no re-sentencing

hearing.

Within 30 days of the order striking the mandatory condition, Appellant

filed a motion to withdraw the guilty plea at issue in this appeal. He filed his

motion pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.170(l) which

provides that a “defendant who pleads guilty or nolo contendere without

expressly reserving the right to appeal a legally dispositive issue may file a

2 motion to withdraw the plea within thirty days after rendition of the sentence

. . . .” The trial court denied the motion.

We find no error in the trial court’s denial of the motion. In the first

place, the striking of the mandatory condition of a sentence already served

for technical reasons while the defendant is serving much longer concurrent

sentences is an act ministerial in nature that does not implicate the trial

court’s broad sentencing discretion. For this reason, the criminal defendant

need not be present in court when such a correction is being made at his

request. Velez v. State, 988 So. 2d 707, 708 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008); Harris v.

State, 12 So. 3d 764, 765 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008); Irons v. State, 851 So. 2d

798, 799 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003). For essentially the same reason, it does not

rise to the level of a sentence rendition re-starting the deadlines contained in

Rule 3.170(l).

In the second place, according to the Florida Supreme Court, “pursuant

to rule 3.170(l), once a sentence has been imposed, a defendant must

demonstrate manifest injustice or prejudice in order to withdraw a guilty

plea.” Altersberger v. State, 216 So. 3d 621, 627 (Fla. 2017). Having

reviewed the care and detail in the exchange between the Appellant and the

trial court when Appellant pled guilty, we find no manifest injustice in the

denial of his request to withdraw his plea twenty-six years later.

3 Affirmed.