Opinion ID: 2534341
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: a final point

Text: Contrary to Stang's assertion, the State did not drop the ball in its prosecution of this case at the postconviction level. First, the State did not participate in Stang's first habeas proceeding, in the Nineteenth Circuit Court in Okeechobee County. Stang filed the petition against DOC, not the State, and the circuit court dismissed the petition based on DOC's response showing that Stang had not exhausted his administrative remedies. Second, the State did not participate in Stang's second habeas proceeding, in the Tenth Circuit Court in Hardee County. Although Stang filed the petition against the State, he served a copy of the petition on DOC rather than the State, and the court apparently denied the petition on its face, never requesting a response from the State. The court issued a brief order noting that Stang's administrative claim had been adequately addressed by DOC and that his sentencing claim must be raised in a postconviction motion filed in the sentencing court in Palm Beach County. Thus, on this record, it appears that the State did not even know that these first two habeas proceedings were taking place. And third, in the subsequent review proceeding before the Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland, although Stang filed the petition against the State, he again failed to serve a copy of the petition on the State. This time, however, the district court ordered the State to respond. At that point in the proceedings, the petition was styled as a petition for writ of certiorari, and the district court's order stated: Respondent shall serve a response to the petition for writ of certiorari within 20 days. Based on that order, the State framed its response in conformity with the standard of review for certiorari proceedingsi.e., the State addressed the issue of whether the order under review departed from the essential requirements of law. The State argued that the Tenth Circuit Court's order was correct, that Stang was pursuing the wrong remedy. Rather than seeking habeas relief, Stang should have raised his sentencing claim in a postconviction motion filed in the trial court. The State further pointed out that Stang could not use habeas corpus to raise an issue that he could have, should have or did raise in his prior rule 3.850 motion. Rather, Stang should have appealed the denial of that motion. After the State filed its response, the Second District Court of Appeal changed the rules of the proceeding. Instead of reviewing Stang's petition as a certiorari petition, the district court, on its own motion, treated the petition as yet another habeas petition and applied an entirely different standard of review. [5] Rather than determining whether the order under review departed from the essential requirements of law, the district court inquired into whether the trial court's detention order was entered without jurisdiction and whether that order was void or illegal. In other words, rather than reviewing the Tenth Circuit Court's order denying habeas relief, the district court reviewed the Fifteenth Circuit Court's sentencing order. The district court did this peremptorily, without asking for supplemental briefing and without having before it a complete record of the sentencing proceeding. In fact, the district court had before it only the sentencing documents that Stang himself had selectively filed in the district court along with his petition. On that basis alone, the Second District Court of Appeal answered the inquiry in the affirmative and ruled that Stang was entitled to immediate release. On rehearing, the State pointed out that the district court had no basis for so ruling when the district court had before it an incomplete sentencing record. The State also pointed out that under rule 9.200(e), it was Stang's duty as petitioner, not the State's, to ensure that all relevant portions of the record from the sentencing court were prepared and transmitted to the district court. [6] Presumably, the State was referring to the key sentencing document that was missing from the recordthe transcript of the March 30, 2005, sentencing hearing. The district court summarily denied rehearing. As a postscript, I note that this Court has supplemented the record on review with an official copy of the transcript of the sentencing hearing from the Fifteenth Circuit Court, and, as discussed above, that transcript shows plainly that it was the trial court's intent that Stang should be imprisoned for a total of twenty-seven years ... with credit for 1,915 days. This resolves the clerical error conclusively in the State's favor. The inquiry is ended. Thus, to the extent the Second District Court of Appeal ruled as it did without adequate briefing and without having before it a complete sentencing record, it was not the State's fault, but its own.