State v. McBride

We review McBride v. State, 810 So.2d 1019, 1023 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002), in which the district court of appeal certified the following question of great public importance:

IS A DEFENDANT ENTITLED TO RELIEF PURSUANT TO A SUCCESSIVE RULE 3.800(a) MOTION TO CORRECT AN ILLEGAL SENTENCE WHEN THE DEFENDANT RAISED THE IDENTICAL ISSUE IN A PRIOR RULE 3.800(a) MOTION THAT WAS DENIED BY THE TRIAL COURT BUT NEVER APPEALED TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL?

We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. We answer the question in the negative and quash the decision of the Fifth District Court of Appeal.

I. Facts

Pursuant to a plea agreement, McBride entered a plea of nolo contendere to charges of attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and robbery with a firearm. See McBride, 810 So.2d at 1020. The court sentenced him as a habitual felony offender to concurrent thirty-year terms of imprisonment on each of the three counts. Id. In May 1990, however, when he committed the attempted first-degree murder, which is a life felony, life felonies were not subject to sentence enhancement under the habitual offender statute. See Lamont v. State, 610 So.2d 435 (Fla.1992).

In 2000, respondent filed a motion under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a), asserting that the habitual offender sentence imposed for the attempted first-degree murder was illegal and requesting that he be resentenced. The court denied the motion, and McBride did not appeal. The following year, McBride filed another motion under the same rule asserting the same argument. Noting the successive nature of the claim, the trial court denied the motion, and this time McBride appealed. The Fifth District reversed, holding that the law of the case doctrine did not bar review by an appellate court and that the illegal sentence should be corrected. The appellate court thus reversed and remanded for further proceedings and certified the question quoted above. McBride, 810 So.2d at 1023.

II. McBride’s Habitual Offender Sentence

This Court previously has held that habitual offender sentences imposed for life felonies when life felonies were not subject to the habitual offender statute are illegal. See Carter v. State, 786 So.2d 1173, 1180 (Fla.2001); Lamont v. State, 610 So.2d 435, 438 (Fla.1992). It is therefore undisputed that McBride’s habitual offender sentence for attempted first-degree murder is illegal. Such a sentence ordinarily may be corrected under rule 3.800(a). See Carter, 786 So.2d at 1180. Because McBride already had filed the identical motion and the court had denied it, however, we must determine whether McBride is procedurally barred from obtaining relief. Our standard of review on such an issue is de novo. See West v. State, 790 So.2d 513, 514 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001); see also State v. Nuckolls, 677 So.2d 12, 13 (Fla. 5th DCA 1996) (noting that “[t]he issues in this case revolve around the legal sufficiency of the pleadings and therefore we review de novo the trial court’s ruling”).

Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) provides as follows, in relevant part:

A court may at any time correct an illegal sentence imposed by it, or an incorrect calculation made by it in a sentencing scoresheet, or a sentence that does not grant proper credit for time served when it is affirmatively alleged that the court records demonstrate on their face an entitlement to that relief ....

As we have previously stated, rule 3.800(a) “is intended to balance the need for finality of convictions and sentences with the goal of ensuring that criminal defendants do not serve sentences imposed contrary to the requirements of law.” Carter, 786 So.2d at 1176. A sentence is illegal if it imposes “a kind of punishment that no judge under the entire body of sentencing statutes could possibly inflict under any set of factual circumstances.” Id. at 1178 (quoting and approving definition in Blakley v. State, 746 So.2d 1182, 1186-87 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999)).

III. The Law of the Case Doctrine

The district court correctly held that the law of the case doctrine does not prevent McBride from relitigating the legality of his habitual offender sentence. That doctrine requires that “questions of law actually decided on appeal must govern the case in the same court and the trial court, through all subsequent stages of the proceedings.” Florida Dep’t of Transp. v. Juliano, 801 So.2d 101, 105 (Fla.2001) (emphasis added). Law-of-the-case principles do not apply unless the issues are decided on appeal. Id,.; see also Kelly v. State, 739 So.2d 1164, 1164 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999) (holding that “[s]ue-cessive 3.800(a) motions re-addressing issues previously considered and rejected on the merits and reviewed on appeal are barred by the doctrine of law of the case”). Because McBride did not appeal the previous order denying his rule 3.800 motion, the district court correctly held that the law of the case doctrine does not apply.

IV. Res Judicata and Collateral Estoppel Principles

Our conclusion that the law of the case doctrine does not bar McBride’s claim does not, however, end our analysis. The State urges us to apply the common law doctrine of res judicata. This Court has explained that doctrine as follows:

A judgment on the merits rendered in a former suit between the same parties or their privies, upon the same cause of action, by a court of competent jurisdiction, is conclusive not only as to every matter which was offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim, but as to every other matter which might with propriety have been litigated and determined in that action.

Juliano, 801 So.2d at 105 (quoting Kimbrell v. Paige, 448 So.2d 1009, 1012 (Fla.1984)). Thus, under res judicata, a judgment on the merits bars a subsequent action between the same parties on the same cause of action. See Denson v. State, 775 So.2d 288, 290 (Fla.2000) (applying res judicata to deny a habeas petition where the defendant had raised the same claim in a 3.800 motion decided against him on the merits and the defendant had exhausted all appropriate appellate review). Res ju-dicata, however, prohibits not only relit-igation of claims raised but also the litigation of claims that could have been raised in the prior action. Juliano, 801 So.2d at 105. The doctrine would require a motion to correct an illegal sentence to raise all arguments that the sentence is illegal. Subsequent motions would be barred if they contained arguments that were or could have been raised in the prior motion. Rule 3.800, however, allows a court to correct an illegal sentence “at any time.” Florida courts have held, and we agree, that the phrase “at any time” allows defendants to file successive motions under rule 3.800. See Raley v. State, 675 So.2d 170, 173 (Fla. 5th DCA 1996); Barnes v. State, 661 So.2d 71, 71 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995). Thus, rule 3.800 expressly rejects application of res judicata principles to such motions.

Again, however, this conclusion does not end the analysis. Although res judicata may not apply to motions filed under rule 3.800, the similar, but more narrow, doctrine of collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, does apply. We have explained that doctrine as follows:

“Collateral estoppel is a judicial doctrine which in general terms prevents identical parties from relitigating the same issues that have already been decided.” Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services v. B.J.M., 656 So.2d 906, 910 (Fla.1995). Under Florida law, collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, applies when “the identical issue has been litigated between the same parties or their privies.” Gentile v. Bander, 718 So.2d 781, 783 (Fla.1998). In addition, the particular matter must be fully litigated and determined in a contest that results in a final decision of a court of competent jurisdiction. See 656 So.2d at 910.

City of Oldsmar v. State, 790 So.2d 1042, 1046 n. 4 (Fla.2001). Although collateral estoppel generally precludes relitigation of an issue in a subsequent but separate cause of action, its intent, which is to prevent parties from rearguing the same issues that have been decided between them, applies in the postconviction context. As explained above, under the principles of res judicata a defendant would be prohibited from filing any successive 3.800 motion on any issue that was or could have been raised. Collateral estoppel, on the other hand, only precludes a defendant from rearguing in a successive rule 3.800 motion the same issue argued in a prior motion.

This analysis is consistent with the application of rule 3.800 in the district courts of appeal. For example, in Smith v. State, 685 So.2d 912, 912 (Fla. 5th DCA 1996), the Fifth District considered “whether the defendant may obtain relief, based on a claim that he was not given proper gain time credit, by a successive rule 3.800 motion.” The court concluded that “[w]hile it may be correct that rule 3.800 does not prohibit successive motions, we hold that where, as here, a defendant raises an issue under rule 3.800, the lower court denies relief and the defendant fails to appeal, he may not later raise the same issue in another rule 3.800 motion.” Id. Accord Tis-dol v. State, 823 So.2d 300, 301 (Fla. 3d DCA 2002); see also Jenkins v. State, 749 So.2d 527, 528 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999) (noting that a defendant may not raise the same illegal sentencing issue in successive post-conviction motions); Price v. State, 692 So.2d 971, 971 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997) (noting that rule 3.800 “contains no proscription against the filing of successive motions” but that “a defendant is not entitled to successive review of a specific issue which has already been decided against him”). In barring the filing of successive repetitive 3.800 motions, these courts essentially have applied collateral estoppel principles.

V. Manifest Injustice

Our application of collateral estoppel principles does not end the analysis, either. We must still decide whether a manifest injustice exception exists in the context of collateral estoppel, and if it does, whether manifest injustice would prohibit application of that doctrine.

This Court has long recognized that res judicata will not be invoked where it would defeat the ends of justice. See deCancino v. E. Airlines, Inc., 283 So.2d 97, 98 (Fla.1973); Universal Constr. Co. v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 68 So.2d 366, 369 (Fla.1953). The law of the case doctrine also contains such an exception. See Strazzulla v. Hendrick, 177 So.2d 1, 4 (Fla.1965). We have found no Florida case holding that such an exception applies to collateral estoppel. Federal courts and other state courts, however, have held that the collateral estoppel doctrine does contain such a manifest injustice exception. See, e.g., Comm’r of Internal Revenue v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591, 599, 68 S.Ct. 715, 92 L.Ed. 898 (1948); Thompson v. Schweiker, 665 F.2d 936, 940 (9th Cir.1982); Tipler v. E.I. duPont deNemours & Co., 443 F.2d 125, 128 (6th Cir.1971); Dowling v. Finley Assocs., Inc., 248 Conn. 364, 727 A.2d 1245, 1249 n. 5 (1999); Kansas Pub. Employees Ret. Sys. v. Reimer & Roger Assocs., Inc., 262 Kan. 635, 941 P.2d 1321, 1333 (1997); State v. Harrison, 148 Wash.2d 550, 61 P.3d 1104, 1109 (2003). We agree. We hold that collateral estoppel will not be invoked to bar relief where its application would result in a manifest injustice.

In light of this holding, we must now determine whether the application of collateral estoppel in this case creates a manifest injustice that can be determined from the face of the record. See Fla. R.Crim. P. 3.800(a) (stating that the motion must “affirmatively allege[ ] that the court records demonstrate on their face an entitlement to ... relief’). As noted above, McBride was sentenced as a habitual offender to concurrent thirty-year terms of imprisonment on each of three felonies. Only the habitual offender sentence for the life felony of attempted first-degree murder, however, is illegal. In light of the concurrent sentences of the same length McBride is serving as a habitual offender, applying collateral estoppel to his successive motion will not result in a manifest injustice. In fact, as the State notes, re-sentencing McBride for the life felony could very well result in an increase in his prison term. See § 775.082, Fla. Stat. (1989). Therefore, McBride’s claim is barred.

Based on the foregoing, the trial court correctly denied McBride’s successive rule 3.800 motion, which raised the identical claim raised in his earlier motion, the denial of which he did not appeal. The prior judgment on the merits is thus final with regard to all matters addressed by the trial court in that order. Accordingly, we quash the decision of the Fifth District Court of Appeal, and answer the certified question in the negative.

It is so ordered.

WELLS and QUINCE, JJ., and SHAW, Senior Justice, concur.

PARIENTE, J., concurs in result only with an opinion, in which ANSTEAD, C.J., concurs.

LEWIS, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with an opinion.

. Both res judicata and collateral estoppel apply in criminal and civil contexts. See, e.g., Thompson v. Crawford, 479 So.2d 169 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985) (noting that the doctrine of res judicata is as applicable to judgments in criminal prosecutions as to civil cases); Brown v. State, 397 So.2d 320, 322 (Fla. 2d DCA 1981) (holding that denial of motions to suppress in a bookstore robbery case was proper under a theory of collateral estoppel where the same witness identification was the subject of prior suppression motions denied in a market robbery case).