Court Opinion

ID: 9902661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-27 15:21:24.617635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:56.281389
License: Public Domain

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                 STATE OF FLORIDA
                 __________________________________

                         Case No. 5D23-0856
                     LT Case No. 2018-CF-10446
                 __________________________________

RASHAUN COOPER,

     Appellant,

     v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

     Appellee.
                  _______________________________

3.850 appeal from the Circuit Court for Duval County.
R. Anthony Salem, Judge.

Rashaun Cooper, Mayo, pro se.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Adam Wilson, Assistant
Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

                        September 22, 2023

WALLIS, J.

       Rashaun Cooper (Appellant) appeals the trial court’s
summary denial of his Rule 3.850 Motion following his negotiated
plea of guilty to counts of Attempted Armed Robbery, Attempted
Second-Degree Murder, Witness Tampering, Possession of a
Firearm by a Juvenile Delinquent Found to Have Committed a
Felony Act, and Resisting an Officer without Violence. Appellant
raises five claims of ineffective assistance of counsel on appeal. We
reverse as to one of the listed claims.

       Appellant entered a negotiated plea receiving fifteen-year
concurrent sentences on three of the charged counts. Two counts
carried ten-year minimum mandatory sentences. The remaining
two counts were dropped. During the plea colloquy Appellant
expressed reluctance about entering the plea but ultimately desired
to do so because it was in his best interest.

       In Ground Five of his motion, Appellant argued that his trial
counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and present the
defense that the victim made a statement saying that Appellant
was not the perpetrator. Appellant asserts that if he had known of
this defense to the charge he would not have pled and would have
insisted on going to trial. We agree with the postconviction court
that if Appellant told his attorney about this statement, he was
“clearly aware” of it to support his defense of innocence. We also
agree that the postconviction court’s attachments show that trial
counsel conducted significant discovery, deposed many witnesses,
engaged in pretrial motion practice, and sought funding for an
investigator. However, the attachments fail to conclusively refute
Appellant’s specific claim that the victim made the exculpatory
statement that could help his defense. See Peede v. State, 748 So.
2d 253, 257 (Fla. 1999) (“To uphold the trial court’s summary denial
of claims raised in a 3.850 motion, the claims must be either facially
invalid or conclusively refuted by the record.”); Aquino v. State, 178
So. 3d 970, 970 (Fla. 5th DCA 2015) (reversing summary denial of
two postconviction claims because attached portions of the record
did not conclusively refute appellant’s allegations regarding those
claims). Finally, the plea colloquy demonstrates that the Appellant
was entering a plea in his best interest because he was receiving
two concurrent fifteen-year sentences as opposed to a potential
maximum exposure of two life terms, not because he was guilty.

     Accordingly, we reverse the denial of Ground Five and remand
for the trial court to either attach additional records refuting
Appellant’s claim or hold an evidentiary hearing. See, e.g., Dungey
v. State, 359 So. 3d 1261, 1262 (Fla. 5th DCA 2023) (remanding for
attachment of additional records or evidentiary hearing).

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    AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART; REMANDED WITH
INSTRUCTIONS.

KILBANE and PRATT, JJ., concur.

                _____________________________

    Not final until disposition of any timely and
    authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
    9.331.
               _____________________________

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