WILFREDO A. ZELAYA, APPELLANT,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Defendant's postconviction motion for newly discovered evidence—an affidavit from the victim's mother stating the victim recanted the allegations—was summarily denied by the trial court, but the appellate court reversed because the record did not conclusively refute the claim and an evidentiary hearing was required.
A trial court's summary denial of a postconviction motion alleging newly discovered evidence in the form of a victim's recantation must be reversed when the record does not conclusively show the defendant is entitled to no relief.
[1] A trial court must conduct an evidentiary hearing on a postconviction motion alleging newly discovered evidence when the record does not conclusively refute the defendant…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceWilfredo Zelaya was convicted of crimes against a victim under twelve years old. Zelaya filed a postconviction motion under Florida Rule of Criminal P…
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Wilfredo A. Zelaya appeals from a summary denial of a postconviction motion under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. We reverse and remand for an evi-dentiary hearing.
The defendant has filed the affidavit of the victim’s mother, which he claims is newly discovered evidence. The affidavit states that the victim, who was under twelve years of age at the time of the charged crime, has told her that the crimes did not actually take place. The trial court summarily denied defendant’s motion of newly discovered evidence. Under this court’s standard of review, we are obligated to reverse “unless the record shows conclusively that the appellant is entitled to no relief....” Fla. R. App. P. 9.141(b)(2)(D). On the face of this pleading and accompanying affidavit, we cannot determine whether the recantation is true, or whether the evidence can be deemed newly discovered and was timely raised *427under the rules. Therefore, because the record does not at this time conclusively refute the defendant’s claim, we reverse the order now before us and remand for an evidentiary hearing for the trial court to determine whether or not this evidence qualifies as newly discovered, and for such other proceedings as may be appropriate. See Roberts v. State, 678 So.2d 1232 (Fla.1996); Jones v. State, 591 So.2d 911, 916 (Fla.1991); Brantley v. State, 912 So.2d 342 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005).
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Jones v. State, 591 So. 2d 911 (Fla. 1991)
- Roberts v. State, 678 So. 2d 1232 (Fla. 1996)
- Cedrick Brantley v. State, 912 So. 2d 342 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005)