Kleckley v. Florida

1

ROBERT KLECKLEY, Petitioner, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, Respondent.

No. 19-62972-CIV-ALTMAN

United States District Court, S.D. Florida

March 2, 2023

ORDER

ROY K ALTMTAN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Our Petitioner, Robert Kleckley, has filed a Motion to Amend or Alter Judgment under Rule 59(e). See Rule 59(e) Motion [ECF No. 29]. We won't repeat here the quirky procedural history of this case. To sum up quickly, though Magistrate Judge Reid issued a Report and Recommendation (“R&R”), in which she suggested that we deny all eleven of the claims Kleckley had asserted in his § 2254 petition. See Kleckley v. Florida, 2022 WL 3566908, at *9 (S.D. Fla. June 27, 2022) (Reid, Mag. J.). We ultimately adopted Magistrate Judge Reid's R&R in two parts. First, after a de novo review, we found that Claims 4 through 10 of the Petition were time-barred under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A), because they challenged (alleged) errors the state court made during Kleckley's original trial (way back in 2000) and because “there's been no intervening judgment since the state court issued its original judgment on June 12 2000.” Kleckley v. Florida (Kleckley I), 2022 WL 2980460, at *3 (S.D. Fla. July 28, 2022) (Altman, J.). Second, with respect to the four remaining claims, we overruled Kleckley's objections and adopted Magistrate Judge Reid's recommendation that we deny those claims on the merits. See Kleckley v. Florida (Kleckley II), 2022 WL 11607203, at *9 (S.D. Fla. Oct. 20, 2022) (Altman, J.). Kleckley now contends that we: (1) “overlooked specific portions of the record that proves that [Claims 4-10] are timely under AEDPA,” and (2) erred in denying Claims 1, 2, 3, and 11. Rule 59(e) Motion at 1.

After careful consideration, and for the reasons set out below, we DENY Kleckley's Rule 59(e) Motion. In doing so, however, we'll GRANT Kleckley a certificate of appealability on two issues-both limited to Kleckley's contention that Claims 4 through 10 are timely because (in his view) the state court's resentencing created a new judgment.

The Law

“The only grounds for granting a Rule 59 motion are newly-discovered evidence or manifest errors of law or fact.” Arthur v. King, 500 F.3d 1335, 1343 (11th Cir. 2007) (cleaned up); see also Eveillard v. Nationstar Mortg. LLC, 2015 WL 1191170, at *5 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 16, 2015) (Bloom, J.) (noting that “an intervening change in controlling law” may serve as a basis for Rule 59 relief). Parties thus “cannot use a Rule 59(e) motion to relitigate old matters, raise argument[s] or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Michael Linet, Inc. v. Vill. of Wellington, 408 F.3d 757, 763 (11th Cir. 2005); see also Stone v. Wall, 135 F.3d 1438, 1442 (11th Cir. 1998) (“The purpose of a Rule 59(e) motion is not to raise an argument that was previously available, but not pressed.”).

Analysis

I. The Untimely Claims (Claims 4-10)

Before addressing Kleckley's new Rule 59(e) arguments, we'll briefly summarize what we've said before on the all-important question of timeliness. It's undisputed that Kleckley was “originally sentenced on June 12, 2000 to life imprisonment on Count 1, and, because he was determined to be a ‘habitual felony offender,' to thirty years for Count 2.” Kleckley I, 2022 WL 2980460, at *3 (cleaned up). It's also undisputed that, after his sentence, Kleckley filed in state court a motion under FLA. R. CRIM. P. 3.800(a), arguing that his sentence on Count 2 was illegal because the judge had improperly applied the “habitual felony offender” enhancement. Id. at *2 (citing 3.800(a) Motion [ECF No. 12-2] at 147-49). Although the state postconviction court originally denied this motion, the Fourth DCA later “reverse[d] the summary denial of appellant's claim that his habitual sentence imposed for count 2 is illegal and remand[ed] for the attachment of record portions conclusively refuting his claim or for resentencing.” Kleckley v. State, 4 So.3d 1290, 1291 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009).

Back on remand, the state postconviction court opted to hold a resentencing hearing on April 9, 2010. See Kleckley I, 2022 WL 2980460, at *3. During that resentencing, “the State submitted Kleckley's certified prior convictions[,] which showed that Kleckley had been ‘convicted of at least two felony offenses[,] [a]t least one of them [being] a violation of some statute other than FLA. STAT. § 893.13[.]'” Ibid. (quoting Resentencing Hr'g Tr. [ECF No. 13-2] at 52 (cleaned up)). After the resentencing, the state court “again determined that Kleckley was a habitual felony offender and again sentenced him to thirty years on Count 2.” Ibid. (emphasis in original). In our prior order, we emphasized that the “[resentencing] court . . . signed a new sentencing order as to Count 2-but (notably) did not issue a new judgment.” Ibid. (emphasis in original). Based on this finding-and our review of the state-court record-we concluded that any errors stemming from Kleckley's original trial (i.e., Claims 4 through 10) were time-barred under § 2244(d)(1)(A) because Kleckley was “still in custody pursuant to his original June 12, 2000 judgment[.]” Ibid. (emphasis added & cleaned up).

Kleckley now argues that we made several errors in arriving at this conclusion. First, he says that the April 9, 2010 resentencing was “a completely de novo proceeding” and that it was not-as we suggested-merely a ministerial hearing to correct a “clerical error.” Rule 59(e) Motion at 2. Second, he contends that, because the resentencing was a de novo proceeding, the state court “rendered a new judgment and sentence order”-and that we were wrong to say otherwise. Id. at 2-3. Third, he insists that this “new” judgment “reset the limitation period for all Petitioner's claims”-and that, as a result, we must consider Claims 4 through 10 on the merits. Id. at 5. In our view, though, Kleckley is (and always has been) incarcerated pursuant to the original judgment from 2000. Indeed-as we're about to see-even if the resentencing did result in a new judgment, that new judgment didn't reset the limitations period in a way that would allow Kleckley to challenge the alleged constitutional errors that may have occurred in his underlying trial.

A. The Resentencing Didn't Impose a New Judgment

As a preliminary matter, we agree with Kleckley that the April 9, 2010 resentencing was a de novo-and not a ministerial-proceeding. See Davis v. State, 227 So.3d 137, 139 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017) (“[W]hen a sentence has been reversed as illegal and the case is remanded for resentencing, a defendant is entitled to the full panoply of due process considerations on resentencing.”). But that doesn't necessarily mean that it resulted in a new judgment. As the Eleventh Circuit has explained, when deciding whether a resentencing hearing ended in a new judgment, we should keep in mind that “the magnitude and type of change to the sentence is beside the point.” Patterson v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., 849 F.3d 1321, 1326-27 (11th Cir. 2017) (en banc). The only question is whether the state court issued a new judgment “authorizing [the petitioner's] confinement[.]” Ibid. And the record in our case is clear that the resentencing court issued no new judgment. The April 9, 2010 resentencing, after all, was limited to one discrete question-whether Kleckley could be sentenced as a “habitual felony offender” on Count 2. See Kleckley, 4 So.3d at 1291 (“We reverse the summary denial of appellant's claim that his habitual sentence imposed for count two is illegal and remand for . . . resentencing.”); Resentencing Hearing Tr. [ECF No. 13-2] at 5 (“[The Court:] Now, if I am reading this right, though, the resentencing is only on Count Two.”).^[1]In other words, the resentencing had nothing to do with the propriety of Kleckley's life sentence as to Count 1-and nothing to do with the viability of Kleckley's conviction. It was, instead, an opportunity for the State to prove that, as to Count 2, Kleckley qualified as a “habitual felony offender” under the statute. If the State could meet its burden of proof at that resentencing, the hearing would then create a forum for the defense to show that an enhanced sentence was “not necessary for the protection of the public.” Kleckley II, 2022 WL 11607203, at *7 (citing FLA. STAT. § 775.084(4)(e)) (cleaned up).

Kleckley nevertheless insists that his resentencing resulted in both a new sentence and a new judgment: “Petitioner,” he says, “received (1) a new adjudication of guilt on Count One and Count Two, (2) a new judgment and restitution order, (3) a new written judgment and sentence order and (4) a new commitment to custody of the department of corrections order”-which, he adds, establishes that a “new judgment and sentence was rendered in this case.” Rule 59(e) Motion at 2. We'll address- and reject-each of these four points in order.

First it's just not the case that Kleckley “received a new adjudication of guilt” on Counts 1 and 2 at the resentencing. As we've explained, the resentencing had nothing to do with Count 1 and was expressly limited to the habitual-felony-offender aspect of Count 2. See Kleckley, 4 So.3d at 1291; Kleckley II, 2022 WL 11607203, at *7. A judgment in Florida is “the adjudication by the court that the defendant is guilty or not guilty.” FLA. R. CRIM. P. 3.650. That plainly occurred on June 12, 2000, when the state court declared that Kleckley had been “tried and found guilty” of Counts 1 and 2. See 2000 Judgment [ECF No. 12-1] at 17. But no state or federal court ever vacated that judgment as to either count, nor was Kleckley ever retried (or found guilty again) on either count. The state-court record thus establishes that the only “adjudication by the court that the defendant is guilty or not guilty”...