Case ID: so3d_249/html/0596-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Galante Romar PHILLIPS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
    No. SC17-1150
    Supreme Court of Florida.
    [July 19, 2018]
    Frank Tassone of Tassone, Dreicer, & Hill, LLC, Jacksonville, Florida, for Appellant
    Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Jennifer A. Donahue, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, for Appellee
   PER CURIAM.

This case is before the Court on appeal from an order granting in part and denying in part a motion to vacate a judgment of conviction of first-degree murder and a sentence of death under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851. We hereby dismiss this appeal because the guilt phase issues were waived since they were not briefed by Phillips, and the penalty phase issues were mooted by the new penalty phase ordered by the trial court pursuant to Hurst v. State , 202 So.3d 40 (Fla. 2016), cert. denied , --- U.S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 2161, 198 L.Ed.2d 246 (2017). Because there will be a new penalty phase, it is inconsequential whether Phillips's trial counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the issue of intellectual disability at the previous penalty phase. As the State argued, Phillips may raise the issue of intellectual disability at the trial court prior to his new penalty phase proceedings. See Godwin v. State , 593 So.2d 211, 212 (Fla. 1992) ("A case is 'moot' when it presents no actual controversy or when the issues have ceased to exist." (citing Black's Law Dictionary 1008 (6th ed. 1990) ) ).

It is so ordered.

CANADY, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, QUINCE, POLSTON, LABARGA, and LAWSON, JJ., concur. 
      
      We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.