ROBERTO CRUZ-BETANZOS,

Appellant,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

FIRST DISTRICT, STATE OF FLORIDA

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO 

FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND 

DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

CASE NO. 1D14-4451

_____________________________/

Opinion filed July 21, 2015.

An appeal from an order of the Circuit Court for Walton County.

Kelvin C. Wells, Judge.

Roberto Cruz-Betanzos, pro se, Appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Jessica DaSilva, Assistant Attorney General, 

and Trisha Meggs Pate, Bureau Chief – Criminal Appeals, Tallahassee, for 

Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The appellant appeals the summary denial of his motion for postconviction 

relief filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. We affirm the 

denial of ground one without further discussion. We reverse and remand the denial 

of ground two for further proceedings.
2

In ground two, the appellant alleges that counsel was ineffective for failing 

to advise him to take a nine-year plea offer. See Lafler v. Cooper, 132 S. Ct. 1376, 

1387 (2012) (“If a plea bargain has been offered, a defendant has the right to 

effective assistance of counsel in considering whether to accept it. If that right is 

denied, prejudice can be shown if loss of the plea opportunity led to a trial 

resulting in a conviction on more serious charges or the imposition of a more 

severe sentence.”); Missouri v. Frye, 132 S. Ct. 1399, 1409 (2012) (“To show 

prejudice . . . where a plea offer has lapsed or been rejected because of counsel’s 

deficient performance, defendants must demonstrate a reasonable probability they 

would have accepted the earlier plea offer had they been afforded effective 

assistance of counsel . . . [and] a reasonable probability the plea would have been 

entered without the prosecution canceling it or the trial court refusing to accept 

it.”). When determining whether a defendant was prejudiced by counsel’s alleged 

deficiencies during the plea process, a defendant must show “that (1) he or she 

would have accepted the offer had counsel advised the defendant correctly, (2) the 

prosecutor would not have withdrawn the offer, (3) the court would have accepted 

the offer, and (4) the conviction or sentence, or both, under the offer’s terms would 

have been less severe than under the judgment and sentence that in fact were 

imposed.” Alcorn v. State, 121 So. 3d 419, 422 (Fla. 2013) (citing Frye and 

Lafler). Here, the appellant alleges that a nine-year offer was made, that he would 
3

have accepted it had he been properly advised, that the state would not have 

rescinded the offer, that the trial court would have accepted it, and that the offer of 

nine years was less than the fifteen-year sentence he ultimately received. The trial 

court’s attachments do not refute the appellant’s facially sufficient allegations.

Thus, we reverse and remand the denial of ground two for the trial court to hold an 

evidentiary hearing.1

AFFIRMED in part, REVERSED and REMANDED in part for further 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

THOMAS, MARSTILLER, and KELSEY, JJ., CONCUR.

 

1 We express no opinion as to the merits of the appellant’s allegations.