Trial Counsel Deemed Ineffective for Letting Defendant Enter a Plea to a Crime He Didn’t Commit

The client was represented by a well-known law firm from Miami-Dade County. He was charged with committing three counts of sexual battery under Statute 794.011(4)(a). The client entered into a negotiated plea and pled guilty to all three-counts as charged. He was sentenced to 6-years in prison followed by 4-years of probation. After the client took his plea and went to prison, his family retained The Law Office of Robert David Malove.  We obtained his entire case file and started our review of the case.

After reviewing the case file and doing our own investigation we found several serious errors of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. First, the client committed sexual battery on a person over 18-years of age, however, he was charged and pled to committing sexual battery on a person under 18-years of age. This was a significant error as sexual battery of a person under 18-years of age is a life felony, punishable by a maximum of up to life in prison. Whereas sexual battery of a person 18-years or older is a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30-years. Additionally, we found that in another count the client entered a plea of guilty to sexual battery which he did not commit. This count was based upon a false allegation that our investigation showed without a doubt the client could not have committed.

We filed our Rule 3.850 motion and after the trial court ordered the State to file a response, we contacted the Assistant State Attorney and spoke with him about our claims. After hearing our side of the claims, the ASA agreed the client could not have committed one of the sexual battery counts and agreed to vacate that conviction in its entirety. The ASA also agreed that trial counsel should not have let his client enter a plea to a life felony, when he only committed a first-degree felony. The client’s convictions and sentences to the erroneous life felonies were vacated and he was re-sentenced on the remaining two counts to the proper charges which were only first-degree felonies.

While this result did not reduce the client’s sentence in prison, it did vacate one of his three convictions, and most importantly corrected two erroneous convictions to a lesser degree felony. Had the convictions remained life felonies and the client violated his probation in the future he would have been subject to two life sentences in prison.

[Related] See the Order Vacating Original Sentence + the New Judgement

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