Opinion ID: 1784700
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Guilty Pleas and the Prejudice Prong of Ineffective Assistance Claims

Text: In Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 58, 106 S.Ct. 366, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985), the United States Supreme Court applied the Strickland test to ineffective assistance claims related to guilty pleas. As to such claims, the Court held that the defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial. Hill, 474 U.S. at 59, 106 S.Ct. 366. We recently applied Hill in a murder case where the defendant claimed that her attorney failed to inform her about an involuntary intoxication defense. See Grosvenor v. State, 874 So.2d 1176 (Fla.), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 1000, 125 S.Ct. 627, 160 L.Ed.2d 458 (2004). We concluded that the proper interpretation of Hill is to follow its express language. Id. at 1181. That is, to meet the prejudice prong, a defendant challenging a guilty plea based on ineffective assistance of counsel does not have to allege ultimate success at trial; only that the defendant would not have pled guilty. Id. Thus, in Bates, I concluded that a defendant's claim that he would not have pled guilty but for counsel's wrong advice and would have gone to trial was sufficient to allege prejudicesubject, of course, to proof at an evidentiary hearing. Bates, 887 So.2d at 1222. [5] In this case, Dickey pled no contest to two third-degree felony charges. Several years later, he filed a postconviction motion attacking the voluntariness of that plea. He alleged: that his sentence in Alabama had been enhanced based on his earlier Florida conviction; that at the time of his prior plea his counsel had erroneously advised him that the Florida conviction could not be used to enhance a sentence for a future crime; and that he would not have pled guilty had he been correctly advised. This but-for claim is precisely what is required under the Supreme Court's decision in Hill and our own analysis in Grosvenor. Thus, Dickey has adequately alleged prejudice for purposes of Strickland. But another obstacle remains.