Appeals and post-conviction motions
APPEALS
After a plea or a trial, the case is usually not over.
An APPEAL may be taken to a higher court. An appeal asks
that higher court (in Florida, the District Court of Appeal
or Florida Supreme Court) to look at the case to determine
if any errors were made. Errors can come from the trial
court’s rulings on evidence, jury instructions,
and rulings on pre-trial motions. AN APPEAL DOES
NOT REWEIGH THE EVIDENCE – by law, an appellate
court cannot substitute its judgment for that of a jury.
Thus, an appellate attorney has to find other creative
ways to get a reversal in a criminal case.
Florida appeals attorney Joe Bodiford
has handled many criminal appeals
in Florida’s First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth District
Courts, the Florida Supreme Court, and the Federal Eleventh
Circuit Court of Appeals. He has briefed many issues,
from denials of motions to suppress to sufficiency of
the evidence to convict, to issues on jury instructions.
He has personally written appeals for cases that went
to trial, cases that pled but had a pre-trial motion,
and post-conviction motions. In one case, Mr. Bodiford
was able to have a Rule 3.850 motion in a murder case
that had been denied REVERSED, and then won the case back
in the trial court.
In most cases, AN APPEAL MUST BE TAKEN in order to preserve
other post-conviction issues in State and Federal courts.
POST-CONVICTION MOTIONS (3.850 and 3.800)
After a conviction is “final” (meaning the
time for an appeal has passed, or if an appeal was taken,
after that appeal is concluded), there is still a way
to challenge a conviction. Hope is not lost!
A motion for post-conviction relief, known in Florida
as a “3.850” or “3850”
motion, may be filed in the trial court (where the conviction
came from). Under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure
3.850, a motion may be made attacking “collateral”
matters, which are issues that were not evident in the
actual record. In other words, issues that are “collateral”
to what happened in court. The most common grounds for
a 3.850 motion are the ineffective assistance of counsel
(the trial attorney didn’t do something he or she
should have), newly discovered evidence, DNA testing,
and the legality of the sentence.
A RULE 3.850 MOTION IS NOT AN APPEAL.
It is not a reweighing of the issues that were presented
on appeal. In fact, either most issues in criminal cases
are for appeal or for post-conviction; each process is
limited to those issues and will be denied if they are
raised in the wrong court.
In some cases, other issues come up after a sentencing
hearing that need to be heard by the judge. There are
times that a judge may be willing to reduce (or “mitigate”)
a sentence. A motion asking a judge to reconsider and
reduce a sentence is filed under Florida Rule of Criminal
Procedure 3.800. Not all cases qualify for this type of
motion; it takes special planning and care to get a case
prepared for a successful 3.800 motion.
It is important to hire an attorney who is familiar
with this very complex area of law. Joe Bodiford
has handled many, many 3.850 and 3.800 motions. He was
a post-conviction clerk for the Hillsborough County courts
while in law school. As an assistant state attorney in
Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, he was called on to
litigate numerous post-conviction motions because of his
clerking experience. As a defense attorney since 1999,
he has handled hundreds of 3.850 motions, from the review
process all the way to final evidentiary hearings. He
has litigated 3.850 motions from Pensacola to Jacksonville,
in Orlando, Inverness, Pinellas and Pasco counties, and
countless motions in Hillsborough County. The cases he
has handled have ranged from drug trafficking to murder
(most recently winning a high-profile murder case in Orlando),
sex crime cases, and everything in between.
Mr. Bodiford’s vast experience with 3.850 and 3.800
motions has led him to develop a unique review system,
to inform the client what possible issues can be raised.
He can also handle a motion that was filed pro se (by
the client) at an evidentiary hearing. If you need help
with a criminal appeal, do not delay in calling
Florida appeals lawyer Joe Bodiford now at (813)222-0032.
