Opinion ID: 1636065
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Dickey and Future Crimes

Text: Like most cases alleging ineffective assistance of counsel, Dickey analyzed the claim using the now-familiar two-pronged test the United States Supreme Court established in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Under that test, the defendant must first specify an act or omission of counsel so serious that counsel was not functioning as the `counsel' guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Second, the defendant must establish prejudice by show[ing] that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. With regard to guilty and nolo contendere pleas, prejudice is satisfied by demonstrating a reasonable probability that but for counsel's errors, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial. Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59, 106 S.Ct. 366, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985). Even before Dickey, we had applied Strickland to claims of advice about the effects of a guilty plea on a sentence for a future crime. In Major v. State, 814 So.2d 424, 425 (Fla.2002), we considered whether the trial court or counsel have a duty to advise a defendant that [the defendant's] plea in a pending case may have sentence enhancing consequences if the defendant commits a new crime in the future. We held there was no such duty. Id. at 431. Because the case involved only the failure to advise that a plea to a crime could enhance a future sentence, however, we did not decide whether counsel's erroneous advice that a plea definitely would not enhance a future sentence would constitute ineffective assistance. We answered that question in Dickey. In that case, the defendant alleged that before entering his plea, his counsel advised him that if Dickey committed another crime, his plea could not be used to enhance a sentence for the later crime. Dickey claimed counsel was ineffective because his conviction was used precisely that way, and had he known of this potential effect he would not have pleaded guilty to the earlier crime. Dickey, 928 So.2d at 1197. Rather than a failure to advise, Dickey involved erroneous adviceor, as some courts have referred to it, affirmative or positive misadvice. We recognized the concurring opinions in Bates, and stated that [t]hese differing opinions are encompassed in our decision. Dickey, 928 So.2d at 1198; see Bates, 887 So.2d at 1220 (Wells, J., concurring specially, with Lewis, J., concurring); id. at 1221 (Cantero, J., specially concurring). We held as follows: We conclude that allegations of affirmative misadvice by trial counsel on the sentence-enhancing consequences of a defendant's plea for future criminal behavior in an otherwise facially sufficient motion are not cognizable as an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. A majority of this Court concludes that claims that a defendant entered a plea based on wrong advice about a potential sentence enhancement for a future crime fail to meet the Strickland test, either because such claims do not demonstrate deficient performance in the case at issue or because, as a matter of law, any deficient performance could not have prejudiced the defendant in that case. Therefore, we hold that wrong advice about the consequences for a crime not yet committed cannot constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. Dickey, 928 So.2d at 1198 (some emphasis added). Just as Dickey considered a question left open in Major, here we consider a question left open in Dickey: whether the erroneous advice that a guilty plea will not enhance the sentence for another crime constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel when the defendant specifically tells counsel before the plea that he has committed another crime.