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Stacy v. State

Citations: 885 So. 2d 474; 2004 Fla. App. LEXIS 15884; 2004 WL 2390881Docket: No. 4D03-3520

Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida; October 27, 2004; Florida; State Appellate Court

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The summary denial of Stacy’s motion for postconviction relief is reversed and remanded due to insufficient record attachments that refute his claims of an involuntary plea and ineffective assistance of counsel, or for the need for an evidentiary hearing. The plea form signed by Stacy was outdated, failing to accurately reflect sentencing under the Criminal Punishment Code, instead referencing inapplicable sentencing guidelines. This discrepancy created ambiguity regarding his maximum sentence, which was stated as both the maximum under the guidelines and a statutory maximum of fifteen years. Despite Stacy's assertion during the plea colloquy that he understood the form, there was a lack of clarity on how his maximum penalty was determined. Consequently, his claim that his counsel misadvised him about a potential sentence of no more than sixteen months remains unrefuted. Additionally, the trial court had denied the same motion in two separate orders for consolidated cases, with one order previously affirmed by this court. That affirmance has now been vacated, and the reversal and remand are applied to both cases. Judges GUNTHER, GROSS, and TAYLOR concur.