Court Opinion

ID: 9907462
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-06 16:05:21.239447+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:56:27.544163
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                               FOURTH DISTRICT

                             DANIEL KANDLER,
                                 Appellant,

                                       v.

                           STATE OF FLORIDA,
                                Appellee.

                              No. 4D2022-2206

                             [December 6, 2023]

   Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm
Beach County; Kirk C. Volker and Scott Suskauer, Judges; L.T. Case No.
50-2017-CF-001850-AXXX-MB.

  Patrick Wilson of Patrick Wilson Law, PLLC, Miami, and Matthew
Goldberger of The Goldberger Firm, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

  Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Lindsay A. Warner,
Senior Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

    After a jury returned a guilty verdict on 48 counts of patient brokering,
and before a judgment of conviction was entered, the appellant withdrew
his previously entered plea of not guilty and entered a plea of guilty to the
charges for which he was found guilty and to charges in two cases that
had not gone to trial. Pursuant to a plea agreement, he received a
downward departure sentence of 48 months’ imprisonment on the case
that went to trial, and 24 months’ imprisonment on the other cases, all
sentences to run concurrently. The trial court expressly sentenced the
appellant pursuant to the plea agreement: “I . . . sentence you according
to all the terms that are specifically set out in your . . . plea agreement. In
particular, it’s a sentence of 48 months in the Department of Corrections
. . . [T]he court adopts the – it sentences you to the terms that are
specifically outlined in that plea [agreement].” The parties agreed the
appellant could appeal in the case that went to trial.

  The issues raised by the appellant in his initial brief relate to trial error,
none of which involve a dispositive issue reserved for appeal.
Consequently, we summarily affirm. See § 924.06(3), Fla. Stat. (2022)
(providing that “[a] defendant who pleads guilty with no express
reservation of the right to appeal a legally dispositive issue . . . shall have
no right to a direct appeal”); Fla. R. App. P. 9.315(a) (providing that “[a]fter
service of the initial brief in appeals under rule . . . 9.140 . . . the court
may summarily affirm the order to be reviewed if the court finds that no
preliminary basis for reversal has been demonstrated”); Leonard v. State,
760 So. 2d 114, 119 (Fla. 2000) (holding that summary affirmance
pursuant to rule 9.315(a) is appropriate “when the court determines that
an appeal does not present: (1) a legally dispositive issue that was
expressly reserved for appellate review pursuant to section 924.051(4)”).

   Our summary affirmance is without prejudice to the appellant to seek
any postconviction relief to which he may be entitled. We do not comment
on the merits of any such request for relief.

   Summarily affirmed.

CIKLIN and KUNTZ, JJ., concur.
WARNER, J., dissents with opinion.

WARNER, J., dissenting.

   I dissent. After a jury trial, as the majority notes, the State and
appellant entered into negotiations to resolve the sentence in this case, as
well as other pending cases against him. Appellant agreed to a global
resolution where he would plead guilty in all three cases and receive a
sentence of forty-eight months to be served concurrently, for all cases,
including the one appealed in this case. A condition of the agreement was
that appellant reserved his right to appeal issues from the jury trial in this
case. The trial court accepted the plea agreement.

    The trial court entered a judgment on the jury verdict as well as a
judgment on the plea. On appeal, this court asked the parties whether
this case should be affirmed because no appealable issues remained after
the appellant entered a plea in this case (as all the issues involved trial
issues). Both appellant and the State asked this court to relinquish
jurisdiction to correct the record to reflect the intent of both parties and
the trial court in accepting the pleas. Procedurally, it is apparent that
appellant cannot both enter a plea of guilty and appeal issues from the
jury trial, but that is not what the parties intended. By relinquishing our
jurisdiction, the parties could agree to the withdrawal of the plea of guilty
in this case only and vacate the judgment by plea, thus allowing the appeal
from the judgment after jury verdict.

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   The majority’s resolution simply creates more work for the trial court,
the State, and the appellant to reflect what all agree was the intent of the
parties. I would not reverse but would relinquish jurisdiction for the
parties to correct the record and then allow the appeal on the merits of the
issues all parties agree appellant was entitled to raise.

                           *         *         *

   Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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