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

Heading: Subsequent Sentence for a Prior Crime

Text: Relying on our decisions in State v. Sallato, 519 So.2d 605, 606 (Fla.1988), and State v. Leroux, 689 So.2d 235, 235 (Fla. 1996), Petitioner argues that erroneous advice about the consequences of a plea on the sentence for another crime that already has been committed is no longer hypothetical and constitutes ineffective assistance. In Sallato, we distinguished a failure to advise claim from a positive misadvice claim. Then, in Leroux, we noted that courts recognized that a defendant may be entitled to withdraw a plea entered in reliance upon his attorney's mistaken advice about sentencing, and stated that such cases recognize the proposition that a defendant invariably relies upon the expert advice of counsel concerning sentencing in agreeing to plead guilty. Leroux, 689 So.2d at 237. Thus, in these two cases, we acknowledged that claims of positive misadvice given on collateral matters on which counsel had no duty to advise a defendant constituted legally cognizable ineffective assistance claims pertaining to the voluntariness of a plea. See Dickey, 928 So.2d at 1200 (Cantero, J., concurring) (citing Leroux and noting that in certain cases involving particular collateral consequences, when counsel have chosen to give such advice [on collateral consequences], courts have recognized claims of ineffective assistance when it was erroneous). Although the issue has not always been framed in terms of ineffective assistance of counsel, other courts, as well, have found erroneous advice about collateral consequences of a plea to justify the plea's withdrawal. See, e.g., Ghanavati v. State, 820 So.2d 989, 991 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002) (When a defendant enters a plea in reliance on affirmative misadvice and demonstrates that he or she was thereby prejudiced, the defendant may be entitled to withdraw the plea even if the misadvice concerns a collateral consequence as to which the trial court was under no obligation to advise him or her.); Joyner v. State, 795 So.2d 267, 268 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001) (remanding for evidentiary hearing where defendant's postconviction motion alleged misadvice regarding loss of the right to vote). We rejected the claim in Dickey because wrong advice about the consequences for a crime not yet committed cannot constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. Dickey, 928 So.2d at 1198 (emphasis added). In this case, however, the later sentence was for a crime committed before entry of the plea used to enhance it. Stated another way, in Dickey the later case was entirely hypothetical; at the time he entered his plea, the defendant had not committed another crime. In this case, he hadand he told his counsel about it. Therefore, counsel advised Petitioner about more than a hypothetical consequence. First, unlike affirmative misadvice on a future crime, the enhancement of the sentence imposed for a previously committed crime does not result from the defendant's later decision to commit another crime. See Bates, 887 So.2d at 1223 (Cantero, J., specially concurring) (Bates never would have been sentenced as a habitual offender had he not decided to commit another felony [after he entered his plea]. His counsel's advice, wrong though it was, would not have affected him at all.). Second, although the charge and successful prosecution of another offense may transpire in the future after the plea is entered, the fact remains that the other offense already has been committed and the potential for sentence enhancement is real. A defendant would have a concrete and immediate interest in the effect of his plea in one case on another. Accordingly, we hold that a claim that counsel erroneously advised a defendant about the effect of his plea on the subsequent sentence imposed in another case for a crime committed before the plea was entered is a cognizable claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.