Case Title: Claudia Vergara Castano v. State of Florida

Citation: 

Docket Number: SC11-1571

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 2012-11-21T00:00:00Z

Document:
Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC11-1571 
____________ 
 
CLAUDIA VERGARA CASTANO,  
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA,  
Respondent. 
 
[November 21, 2012] 
 
PER CURIAM. 
 
In Castano v. State, 65 So. 3d 546 (Fla. 5th DCA 2011), the Fifth District 
Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of Claudia Vergara Castano’s postconviction 
motion.  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.  In this timely 
filed initial postconviction motion, Castano raised the same claim raised in Padilla 
v. Kentucky, 130 S. Ct. 1473 (2010), which held that defense counsel was deficient 
for failing to advise his client of mandatory deportation consequences for pleading 
guilty.  Castano’s postconviction proceeding was pending when the United States 
Supreme Court issued Padilla.  Therefore, although we held that Padilla does not 
apply retroactively in Hernandez v. State, Nos. SC11-941 & SC11-1357 (Fla. Nov. 
 
 
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21, 2012), Padilla does apply to Castano’s pending case.  On that basis, we quash 
the Fifth District’s decision and remand for further proceedings.   
 
It is so ordered. 
POLSTON, C.J, and LEWIS, QUINCE, CANADY, LABARGA, and PERRY, JJ., 
concur. 
PARIENTE, J., concurs with an opinion, in which QUINCE and PERRY, JJ., 
concur. 
 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND 
IF FILED, DETERMINED.   
 
PARIENTE, J., concurring. 
 
I concur with the majority that Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S. Ct. 1473 (2010), 
is not retroactive, but does apply to this case.  I write to explain why.  Here, 
Castano timely filed an initial postconviction motion months after her plea, raising 
the same claim as raised in Padilla.  The United States Supreme Court then issued 
its decision in Padilla while Castano’s postconviction motion was still pending in 
the trial court.  This is therefore not a case where the defendant waited for years 
after the conviction and initial postconviction motion were final to bring a Padilla 
claim.  Specifically, this case stands in contrast to Hernandez v. State, Nos. SC11-
941 & SC11-1357 (Fla. Nov. 21, 2012), where the defendant waited nine years 
after his 2001 plea to move for postconviction relief.  Fundamental fairness 
demands that Castano receive the benefit of Padilla. 
 
 
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The underlying facts of this case are as follows.  Castano has stated that 
although she was not a United States citizen, she was lawfully residing in this 
country and was in the process of trying to obtain her permanent residency.  She 
also has stated that she intended to ultimately apply for United States citizenship, 
and her youngest child was an American citizen.  At the time of the criminal 
charges, Castano owned and operated a day care center out of her home.  She was 
charged with child neglect, a third-degree felony, when a child under her care was 
found wandering in her neighborhood.  See Castano v. State, 65 So. 3d 546, 547 
(Fla. 5th DCA 2011).  The child was found unharmed a short distance away by a 
neighbor who called the police.  Castano entered her plea on March 4, 2009, and 
was sentenced to one day in jail, with credit for one day served, three years of 
supervised probation, and court costs.  In November 2009, only eight months after 
the plea, Castano filed a postconviction motion alleging, among other grounds for 
relief, that her counsel had failed to advise her that her plea would subject her to 
mandatory deportation. 
There was dispute about the specific advice Castano’s defense counsel gave 
her regarding the immigration consequences of her plea.  According to her defense 
attorney, he had told Castano she needed to consult with an immigration attorney.  
On the other hand, Castano testified that she did not know she would be entering a 
plea until just minutes before entering the courtroom.  She stated that her counsel 
 
 
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told her that there was no alternative because she “would be found guilty anyway.”  
She further testified that counsel told her that the plea would require only a 
payment from her and that “everything was going to be all right.”  She testified, 
however, that as a result of her plea, she was now subject to deportation and has 
lost the license to run her day care business, her main source of income. 
At the time of the evidentiary hearing in December 2009, the law in Florida 
was governed by State v. Ginebra, 511 So. 2d 960, 962 (Fla. 1987), which held 
“that counsel’s failure to advise his client of the collateral consequence of 
deportation does not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel.”  However, before 
the trial court entered an order denying relief in this case, the United States 
Supreme Court issued its opinion in Padilla, a postconviction case involving a 
similar claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to advise of the 
deportation consequences of a plea.  The Supreme Court held that Padilla’s defense 
counsel was deficient under the first prong of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 
668 (1984), for failing to advise Padilla that a guilty plea would subject him to 
automatic deportation.  Padilla, 130 S. Ct. at 1478. 
In this case, the postconviction court denied Castano’s motion by finding 
that the record refuted her claims of an involuntary plea, attaching a transcript of 
the 2009 plea colloquy.  The postconviction court did not make any findings 
 
 
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concerning whether counsel had advised Castano of a risk of deportation or had 
referred her to an immigration attorney. 
On appeal to the Fifth District, Castano advanced the argument that, under 
Padilla, her attorney “was ineffective for failing to apprise her of the immigration 
consequences of her plea.”  Castano, 65 So. 3d at 547.  The Fifth District affirmed 
the denial of relief, holding that the plea colloquy cured any prejudice and that 
Padilla was not retroactive.  Id. at 548. 
This Court in Hernandez, Nos. SC11-941 & SC11-1357 (Fla. Nov. 21, 
2012), held that Hernandez’s counsel was deficient for failing to advise him that 
his plea subjected him to presumptively mandatory deportation, but that Padilla did 
not apply retroactively to his case.  This Court also rejected the argument that the 
plea colloquy cured any claim of prejudice arising out of deficient advice regarding 
the plea consequences.  Further, in light of Padilla, this Court receded from 
Ginebra, the controlling case law at the time of Castano’s plea.  See Hernandez v. 
State, Nos. SC11-941 & SC11-1357, majority op. at 8 n.5. 
I agreed in Hernandez that Padilla should not be applied retroactively to 
cases where initial postconviction proceedings were final before Padilla was 
decided.  Here, however, Castano timely raised her claim of ineffective assistance 
of counsel and sought to withdraw her plea only eight months after the plea was 
entered.  The facts of this case stand in stark contrast to the facts of Hernandez, 
 
 
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where Hernandez waited until 2010 to assert ineffective assistance of counsel with 
respect to his 2001 plea, filing a postconviction motion only after Padilla was 
decided.  
 
Moreover, this case is distinguishable from those cases in which we have 
restricted the benefit of new law to “pipeline” cases—that is, cases in which an 
appellate court mandate has not yet issued on direct appeal.  Those cases typically 
involved new law on issues that would be raised during direct appeal—not 
postconviction.  See Hughes v. State, 901 So. 2d 837, 838 (Fla. 2005) (sentencing 
issue—application of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), which held 
that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty 
for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury 
and proved beyond a reasonable doubt”); Johnson v. State, 904 So. 2d 400, 405, 
407 (Fla. 2005) (sentencing issue—application of “Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 
(2002), which held that a jury, not a judge, must find every fact upon which 
eligibility for the death penalty depends”); Smith v. State, 598 So. 2d 1063, 1064 
(Fla. 1992) (sentencing issue—“when an appellate court reverses a departure 
sentence because there were no written reasons, the court must remand for 
resentencing with no possibility of departure from the guidelines”). 
 
In contrast to the above “pipeline” cases, Padilla created new law that would 
apply to a claim raised in postconviction, not on direct appeal.  Given the 
 
 
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procedural posture of this case—where the defendant timely raised the same 
postconviction claim as the defendant in Padilla and the resolution of her claim 
was still pending at the time Padilla was decided—it is in effect a “pipeline” case 
for purposes of whether Padilla applies.  Cf. Barthel v. State, 882 So. 2d 1054, 
1055 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004) (applying this Court’s decision in Nelson v. State, 875 
So. 2d 579 (Fla. 2004)—which established new law regarding the requirements for 
an ineffective assistance of counsel claim for failing to call a witness—to the 
appeal from the denial of a postconviction motion, because the “appeal was in the 
‘pipeline’ at the time Nelson became final,” and therefore the defendant “is entitled 
to the benefit of the controlling law in Nelson in effect at the time of appeal”). 
In sum, Castano was in the exact same position as Padilla, having filed a 
postconviction motion claiming that counsel was ineffective for failing to advise of 
the deportation consequences of a plea.  Unlike the defendant in Hernandez, this is 
not a case where the defendant waited years after the conviction was final to bring 
a Padilla claim.  Rather, Castano timely filed a postconviction motion just months 
before the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Padilla, and the resolution of 
Castano’s claim was still pending when Padilla was decided.  Under the facts of 
this case, it would be inequitable and illogical to hold that only one of two 
similarly situated defendants—Padilla and not Castano—should receive the benefit 
 
 
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of the United States Supreme Court’s decision.  Accordingly, I concur with the 
majority opinion. 
QUINCE and PERRY, JJ., concur. 
 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Certified 
Direct Conflict of Decisions 
 
 
Fifth District - Case No. 5D10-2032 
 
 
(Orange County) 
 
H. Manuel Hernandez of H. Manuel Hernandez, P.A., Longwood, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida; and Kristen Lynn 
Davenport and Wesley Harold Heidt, Assistant Attorneys General, Daytona Beach, 
Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent 
 
Rebecca A. Sharpless, University of Miami School of Law, Immigration Clinic, 
Coral Gables, Florida, 
 
 
for Amicus Curiae, Lawyers Association American Immigration