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

Heading: Deficient Performance in Advising about the Consequences of Future, Uncommitted Crimes

Text: Although Dickey has adequately alleged prejudice under Strickland, I conclude that, as a matter of law, he has not stated a facially valid claim that his counsel performed deficiently, which is the first prong of Strickland. The First District essentially concluded that whenever defense counsel gives a wrong answer to a defendant's hypothetical legal question about a guilty plea, the defendant has stated a facially sufficient claim of ineffective assistance as long as he also alleges that but for the wrong advice he would not have pled guilty. Dickey, 30 Fla. L. Weekly at D445. The court stated that failing to recognize such a claim would constitute disapproval of a defendant's thought process (his intent to commit, or at least reflection about, future crimes). Id. I disagree. Regardless of a defendant's intent to commit another crime, any erroneous advice about the potential enhancement for sentences on a crime yet to be committed is irrelevant to the plea and sentence at hand. As I said in Bates, Bates never would have been sentenced as a habitual offender had he not decided to commit another felony. His counsel's advice, wrong though it was, would not have affected him at all. 887 So.2d at 1223. We have held that defense counsel has no duty to advise defendants about a plea's collateral consequences, and therefore failure to do so does not constitute ineffective assistance. See Major v. State, 814 So.2d 424, 426-27 (Fla.2002). It is nevertheless true that in certain cases involving particular collateral consequences, when counsel have chosen to give such advice, courts have recognized claims of ineffective assistance when it was erroneous. See, e.g., State v. Leroux, 689 So.2d 235, 238 (Fla. 1996) (reversing for evidentiary hearing on claim that counsel wrongly advised defendant about the actual amount of time to be served on a negotiated sentence); Joyner v. State, 795 So.2d 267, 268 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001) (reversing where the defendant alleged that counsel wrongly advised him that he would not lose his right to vote because of a youthful offender conviction). I do not quarrel with those decisions. Not every instance of erroneous advice about the collateral consequences of a guilty plea, however, will constitute error so serious that counsel was not functioning as the `counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. In Bates I explained that a fundamental difference exists between incorrect advice about collateral consequences of a plea such as deportation and loss of employment and incorrect advice about future crimes. In the former cases, the consequences, while collateral to the conviction, are immediate, result directly from the plea at issue, and occur regardless of the defendant's future conduct. When the consequence is a sentence enhancement for a future crime, however, it is contingent on the commission of another felony, which may never occur. It is the defendant's decision to commit another felony, not the wrong advice, that produces the enhanced sentence. 887 So.2d at 1223. Unlike other collateral consequences of a plea, such as deportation, the future enhancement of a sentence based on a crime not yet committed does not necessarily follow upon conviction for the present crime. It may not follow at all. It is only a potential effect, and it is contingent solely on the defendant's own decision to commit another crimenot on any misstatements by defense counsel. In Hill, the Supreme Court emphasized the importance of the fundamental interest in the finality of guilty pleas, 474 U.S. at 58, 106 S.Ct. 366, and cautioned courts about setting aside guilty pleas based on new grounds by citing its opinion in United States v. Timmreck, 441 U.S. 780, 99 S.Ct. 2085, 60 L.Ed.2d 634 (1979), as follows: Every inroad on the concept of finality undermines confidence in the integrity of our procedures; and, by increasing the volume of judicial work, inevitably delays and impairs the orderly administration of justice. The impact is greatest when new grounds for setting aside guilty pleas are approved because the vast majority of criminal convictions result from such pleas. Moreover, the concern that unfair procedures may have resulted in the conviction of an innocent defendant is only rarely raised by a petition to set aside a guilty plea. Id. at 784, 99 S.Ct. 2085 (quoting United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521, 528-529 (7th Cir.1971) (Stevens, J., dissenting)); see also Witt v. State, 387 So.2d 922, 925 (Fla. 1980) (The reasons for narrowly limiting the grounds for collateral attack on final judgments are well known and basic to our adversary system of justice.). Thus, courts do not lightly recognize new grounds for postconviction relief.