COLE III v. STATE (2021)

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.2021-08-04No. No. 3D21-599

Summary · law.co

Holding. The court affirmed the trial court's denial of Cole's untimely motions to withdraw his plea, without prejudice to his right to file a timely motion under the alternative rule.

Frederick Cole sought to withdraw his guilty plea and sentence more than a year after being sentenced to eight years in prison plus two years of probation on November 6, 2019. He filed two separate motions to withdraw the plea—one in November 2020 and another in January 2021—both citing identical grounds for withdrawal.

Florida law strictly limits motions to withdraw a guilty plea filed after sentencing. Such motions must be filed within thirty days of sentencing and may only raise specific grounds outlined in the appellate rules. Because Cole's motions were filed well beyond this thirty-day window, the trial court properly rejected them as untimely. Missing this deadline prevents appellate review of the withdrawal issue and channels the defendant instead toward pursuing relief through a different procedural mechanism available under Florida law.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Timeliness requirement for motions to withdraw guilty plea after sentencing
Thirty-day filing deadline under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.170(l)
Procedural consequences of missing the deadline for plea withdrawal

Procedural posture

Cole appealed the trial court's order denying his two motions to withdraw his guilty plea and sentence as untimely.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

Frederick L. Cole, III appeals from an order denying, as untimely, his motions to withdraw plea filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.170(l). Cole alleged in his motions that he entered a plea of guilty pursuant to negotiations and that, as a result of the negotiated plea, he was sentenced on November 6, 2019, to eight years in prison followed by two years probation.

Thereafter, Cole filed two separate motions to withdraw his plea. The first motion to withdraw was handwritten, and alleges it was placed in the hands of corrections officials on November 18, 2020, more than a year after the sentence was rendered. The second motion was typewritten, and alleges it was placed in the hands of corrections officials on January 6, 2021, fourteen months after the sentence was rendered. Both motions allege the identical basis for seeking to withdraw the November 6, 2019, plea and sentence.

The trial court properly denied these motions as untimely. A motion to withdraw plea pursuant to rule 3.170(l) is narrowly limited in both time and scope:

Motion to Withdraw the Plea after Sentencing. A defendant who pleads guilty or nolo contendere without expressly reserving the right to appeal a legally dispositive issue may file a motion to withdraw the plea within thirty days after rendition of the sentence, but only upon the grounds specified in Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.140(b)(2)(A)(ii)(a)-(e) except as provided by law.

Coles failure to file his motion to withdraw plea within thirty days of rendition of his sentence “waives the issue for appellate review, and the defendant is limited to filing a motion pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850.” McKnight v. State, 964 So. 2d 803, 804 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007) (quoting Gafford v. State, 783 So. 2d 1191, 1192 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001)); Sundwall v. State, 306 So. 3d 1061 (Fla. 3d DCA 2020); Daniels v. State, 974 So. 2d 1131 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008).

Affirmed without prejudice to the filing of a timely and legally sufficient motion pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850.

EMAS, J.