Court Opinion

ID: 9405414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-28 15:11:14.65106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:21.892595
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                                FOURTH DISTRICT

                          AUSTIN BRYAN NABEACK,
                                 Appellant,

                                       v.

                             STATE OF FLORIDA,
                                  Appellee.

                                No. 4D22-2480

                                [June 28, 2023]

  Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit,
Martin County; Sherwood Bauer, Jr., Judge; L.T. Case No.
432022CF000222A.

   Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Robert Porter, Assistant Public
Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

   Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Paul Patti, III, Senior
Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

MAY, J.

    The defendant appeals his conviction and sentence after his plea to a
first-degree felony charge of solicitation to tamper with a witness. He
argues the trial court erred in accepting his no contest plea because the
charged crime should have been a second-degree felony. We agree and
reverse.

    The defendant was charged with, and convicted of, attempted felony
murder, attempted robbery with a deadly weapon, and burglary with a
battery while armed. He received a life sentence. 1 The State then charged
the defendant with solicitation to tamper with a witness as a first-degree
felony, to which he entered an open plea of no contest. The maximum
penalty for the first-degree felony was thirty years.

   The defendant requested a ten-year concurrent sentence. The State
requested a concurrent twenty-year sentence. The trial court sentenced

1   His conviction and sentence are now on appeal in Case No. 4D22-2136.
the defendant to fifteen years concurrent with his life sentence on the
underlying charges.

    The defendant moved to correct an illegal sentence, arguing
“solicitation to tamper with a witness as a first-degree felony was a non-
existent offense.” Under sections 914.22 and 777.04, Florida Statutes
(2021), the crime could be charged only as a second-degree felony. The
defendant argued he was entitled to be resentenced based on the improper
charge’s impact on his scoresheet and the trial court’s misunderstanding
of the maximum possible sentence. The trial court denied the motion.

   The defendant now appeals.

    The defendant claims fundamental error in the trial court’s acceptance
of his plea for a non-existent crime. He argues sections 914.22 and 777.04
limit solicitation to tamper with a witness in a first-degree underlying
offense to a second-degree felony. The State responds the crime was
properly charged, the felony classification is not an element of the offense,
and the defendant’s claims are unpreserved because he failed to file a
motion to withdraw his plea.

  We have de novo review of a fundamental error claim. See State v.
Smith, 241 So. 3d 53, 55 (Fla. 2018).

   The State first argues the defendant’s claims are unpreserved and
unreviewable due to the defendant’s failure to move to withdraw his plea
or raise a contemporaneous objection. The defendant responds that an
attack on a plea to a non-existent crime can be appealed as fundamental
error. We agree with the defendant.

    Because the defendant’s argument is not based on the involuntariness
of his plea, he is permitted to argue fundamental error. See Brevil v. State,
326 So. 3d 1129, 1134 n.1 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021) (a motion to withdraw plea
is not required for preservation when an appellant does not argue his plea
was involuntary).

       •   Was There Fundamental Error?

   It is fundamental error to accept a plea where the record affirmatively
demonstrates the crime to which the defendant pled guilty could not have
occurred. See, e.g., Miller v. State, 988 So. 2d 138, 139 (Fla. 1st DCA
2008).

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   Here, the elements of the defendant’s charged offense of solicitation to
tamper with a witness include: (1) the defendant solicited [named person]
to commit a tampering with a witness offense; and (2) during the
solicitation, the defendant commanded, encouraged, hired, or requested
[named person] to engage in specific conduct, which would constitute the
commission of tampering with a witness or an attempt to commit
tampering with a witness. § 777.04(2), Fla. Stat.

    The defendant argues the crime with which he was charged provides
that “[t]ampering with a witness . . . is a[] [l]ife felony . . . where the official
investigation or official proceeding affected involves the investigation or
prosecution of a life or capital felony.” § 914.22(2)(e), Fla. Stat. (emphasis
added). However, the solicitation statute, codified at section 777.04(4)(c),
Florida Statutes, states, “if the offense attempted, solicited, or conspired
to is a life felony or a felony of the first degree, the offense of . . . criminal
solicitation . . . is a felony of the second degree.” (Emphasis added).

   The defendant further contends that when these statutes are read
together, “solicitation to tamper with a witness [in a] life felony, can be
charged only as a second-degree felony.” That makes his conviction a legal
impossibility. The State responds the proper felony classification is not an
element of the crime and competent evidence of each element of the crime
charged was shown. While the State is correct in its statements, that does
not exclude the existence of fundamental error.

   Section 777.04(4)(c), Florida Statutes, provides:

      Except as otherwise provided in s. 893.135(5), if the offense
      attempted, solicited, or conspired to is a life felony or a
      felony of the first degree, the offense of criminal attempt,
      criminal solicitation, or criminal conspiracy is a felony of
      the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082,
      s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

(Emphasis added). The section’s plain text supports the defendant’s
position. The highest degree of crime that could have been charged was a
“felony of the second degree.”

   The defendant thus pled to an incorrect level of crime, which carried a
higher penalty. As a second-degree felony, the defendant’s sentence could
not have exceeded fifteen years. Because the trial court entered a sentence
in the middle of what the State and the defendant requested based upon
the maximum penalty of thirty years for a first-degree felony, we must
reverse and remand the case. Upon remand, the trial court must vacate

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the sentence, conviction, and plea, and allow the defendant to plead to the
second-degree crime of solicitation to tamper with a witness to a life felony.

   Reversed and remanded with directions.

GROSS and FORST, JJ., concur.

                            *         *         *

   Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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