Jason L. Williams v. State

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
FIFTH DISTRICT
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO
FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND
DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED
JASON L. WILLIAMS,
Appellant,
v. Case No. 5D17-2543
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
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Opinion filed October 20, 1017
3.800 Appeal from the Circuit Court
for Citrus County,
Richard A. Howard, Judge.
Jason L. Williams, Okeechobee, pro se.
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General,
Tallahassee, and Kaylee D. Tatman,
Assistant Attorney General, Daytona
Beach, for Appellee.
ORFINGER, J.
Jason L. Williams appeals the denial of his motion to correct sentence filed
pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a). We affirm in part and reverse
in part.
Williams was convicted of robbery while masked and two counts of grand theft.
He was sentenced to life in prison with a thirty-year minimum mandatory for the robbery,
and ten years in prison for the grand thefts. Additionally, he was designated as both a
habitual felony offender (HFO) and a prison releasee reoffender (PRR). This Court
affirmed Williams’s judgment and sentence on appeal. Williams v. State, 134 So. 3d 965
(Fla. 5th DCA 2014).
Williams filed his first motion to correct sentence, challenging his HFO and PRR
designations. The trial court dismissed the motion not on the merits, but as facially
insufficient. Williams appealed, and this Court affirmed. Williams v. State, No. 5D17-162
(Fla. 5th DCA May 2, 2017). Williams then filed the instant motion to correct sentence,
raising the same challenge to his HFO and PRR designations but now including record
attachments. The trial court denied relief, ruling that the instant motion was improperly
successive. This appeal follows.
The error to be corrected in a rule 3.800(a) motion must be apparent from the face
of the record. Johnson v. State, 60 So. 3d 1045, 1049 (Fla. 2011). Accordingly, such a
motion cannot require an evidentiary hearing. Id. As no evidentiary hearing is required
or permitted, this Court is presented with pure issues of law on appeal, and applies the
de novo standard of review. Smith v. State, 143 So. 3d 1023, 1024 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014).
While rule 3.800(a) permits a defendant to file successive motions, a defendant is
precluded from re-litigating the same issue previously decided on the merits in a
successive rule 3.800(a) motion. See State v. McBride, 848 So. 2d 287, 290-91 (Fla.
2003) (noting that, by “barring the filing of successive repetitive 3.800 motions, [Florida
appellate] courts essentially have applied collateral estoppel principles”); Ellis v. State,
853 So. 2d 484, 485 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003) (explaining defendant’s successive rule 3.800(a)
motion violated law of case doctrine).
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In his successive motion, Williams alleges his PRR designation is illegal because
the trial court used the wrong dates in determining whether he committed the requisite
offenses within the three-year statutory time frame. Williams’s prior motion was
dismissed as facially insufficient because he failed to allege which court records would
show that his PRR designation was improper. The instant motion corrects that deficiency
and is facially sufficient. Because the first motion was not denied on the merits, the instant
motion is not improperly successive and should be considered by the trial court as to the
PRR designation. However, we affirm as to the HFO designation without further
discussion. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for the trial court to address the PRR
claim on the merits.
AFFIRMED in part; REVERSED in part; and REMANDED.
BERGER and WALLIS, JJ., concur.
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