Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Reginald Kindle, Petitioner v. Florida

No.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

REGINALD KINDLE, PETITIONER

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA, RESPONDENT.

_____________

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to

the Fourth District Court of Appeal of Florida

_____________

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

CAREY HAUGHWOUT

Public Defender

Paul Edward Petillo

Assistant Public Defender

Counsel of Record

Office of the Public Defender

Fifteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida

421 Third Street

West Palm Beach, FL 33401

(561) 355-7600

ppetillo@pd15.state.fl.us

appeals@pd15.org

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether a sentencing court violates a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to

a jury trial when it finds by a preponderance of the evidence that he committed his

offense within five years of his release from prison and on that basis enhances his

sentence above the statutory maximum for his underlying offense?

i

RELATED PROCEEDINGS

The proceedings listed below are directly related to the above-captioned case

in this Court.

State v. Kindle, No. 15-8439CF10A (Fla. 17th Judicial Circuit).

Kindle v. State, 4D20-0669, 321 So. 3d 226 (Fla. 4th DCA July 22, 2021).

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Table of Authorities ....................................................................................................... v

Opinion Below ................................................................................................................ 1

Jurisdiction .................................................................................................................... 2

Constitutional and Statutory Provisions ...................................................................... 2

Statement of the Case ................................................................................................... 6

Reasons for Granting the Petition ................................................................................ 8

I. The interpretation of the Sixth Amendment adopted by the Florida courts

cannot be reconciled with the decisions of the Arizona Court of Appeals in State

v. Large, 321 P. 3d 439 (Az. App. 2014), and State v. Gross, 31 P. 3d 815 (Az.

App. 2001). .................................................................................................................. 8

II. The decision below conflicts with this Court’s interpretation of the Sixth

Amendment in Apprendi and its progeny and those cases’ limited fact-of-aprior-conviction exception. ......................................................................................... 9

Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 15

INDEX TO APPENDICES

A. Information .............................................................................................................. A2

B. Verdict ..................................................................................................................... A4

C. Sentence................................................................................................................... A5

D. Amended Motion to Correct Sentencing Error ...................................................... A8

E. Florida’s Response to Motion……………………….. ……...…………...……………A21

F. Kindle’s Reply ........................................................................................................ A38

G. Order Denying Motion to Correct......................................................................... A46

H. Initial Brief Excerpt .............................................................................................. A50

I. Answer Brief Excerpt ............................................................................................. A63

iii

J. Reply Brief Excerpt................................................................................................ A71

K. Opinion .................................................................................................................. A75

L. Motion for Written Opinion .................................................................................. A76

M. Order Denying Motion for Written Opinion ........................................................ A82

N. Sentencing Transcript .......................................................................................... A83

iv

TABLE OF AUTHORTIES

Cases

Chapa v. State, 159 So. 3d 361 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015).................................................... 8

Descamps v. United States, 570 US. 254 (2013) ............................................. 10, 12, 13

Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Florida, 480 U.S. 136 (1987) .............. 2

Jenkins v. State, 385 So. 2d 1356 (Fla. 1980) ............................................................... 2

Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016) ................................................... 10, 14

People v. Molina, 2014 WL 3590145 (Cal. 2d DCA 2014) ............................................ 9

People v. Montoya, 141 P. 3d 916 (Co. App. 2006) ........................................................ 8

Robinson v. State, 793 So. 2d 891 (Fla. 2001)............................................................... 8

Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005) ................................................ 10, 11, 12

Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990).............................................................. 10

Williams v. State, 143 So. 3d 423 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014) ................................................ 8

Statutes

§ 775.082(3)(d), Fla. Stat. .............................................................................................. 6

§ 775.084(1)(d), Fla. Stat. .............................................................................................. 6

§ 775.084(3)(c), Fla. Stat................................................................................................ 6

§ 775.084(4)(d), Fla. Stat.. ............................................................................................. 6

§ 782.07(1), Fla. Stat...................................................................................................... 6

18 U.S.C. § 924(e)......................................................................................................... 10

v

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_____________

No.

REGINALD KINDLE, PETITIONER,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA, RESPONDENT.

_____________

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO

THE FOURTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA

_____________

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

_____________

Reginald Kindle respectfully petitions for a writ of certiorari to review the

judgment of Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal.

OPINION BELOW

The opinion of Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal is reported as Kindle

v. State, 321 So. 3d 226 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021), and is reprinted in the appendix. A75.

Kindle moved for a written opinion (A76-A81), and the Fourth District Court of

Appeal’s order denying the motion is reprinted in the appendix. A82.

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JURISDICTION

Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed Kindle’s judgment and

sentence on July 22, 2021. A75. The decision was “Per Curiam. Affirmed.” A75. It

denied his motion for written opinion on August 12, 2021. A82. This decision was

final, as the Florida Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to review a “per curiam

affirmance.” See Jenkins v. State, 385 So. 2d 1356 (Fla. 1980); see also Hobbie v.

Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Florida, 480 U.S. 136, 139 n.4 (1987)

(acknowledging that “[u]nder Florida law, a per curiam affirmance issued without

opinion cannot be appealed to the State Supreme Court” and therefore petitioner

“sought review directly in this Court.”). This Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.

§ 1257(a).

CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY PROVISIONS

The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides: “In all

criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial,

by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been

committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be

informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the

witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his

favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”

Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution

provides: “[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,

without due process of law….”

Section 775.084(1)(d), Florida Statutes (2015), provides:

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(d) “Violent career criminal” means a defendant for whom the court

must impose imprisonment pursuant to paragraph (4)(d), if it finds

that:

1. The defendant has previously been convicted as an adult three or

more times for an offense in this state or other qualified offense that is:

a.

Any forcible felony, as described in s. 776.08;

b.

Aggravated stalking, as described in s. 784.048(3) and (4);

c.

Aggravated child abuse, as described in s. 827.03(2)(a);

d. Aggravated abuse of an elderly person or disabled adult, as

described in s. 825.102(2);

e. Lewd or lascivious battery, lewd or lascivious molestation, lewd or

lascivious conduct, or lewd or lascivious exhibition, as described in s.

800.04 or s. 847.0135(5);

f.

Escape, as described in s. 944.40; or

g. A felony violation of chapter 790 involving the use or possession of

a firearm.

2. The defendant has been incarcerated in a state prison or a federal

prison.

3. The primary felony offense for which the defendant is to be

sentenced is a felony enumerated in subparagraph 1. and was

committed on or after October 1, 1995, and:

a. While the defendant was serving a prison sentence or other

sentence, or court-ordered or lawfully imposed supervision that is

imposed as a result of a prior conviction for an enumerated felony; or

b. Within 5 years after the conviction of the last prior enumerated

felony, or within 5 years after the defendant’s release from a prison

sentence, probation, community control, control release, conditional

release, parole, or court-ordered or lawfully imposed supervision or

other sentence that is imposed as a result of a prior conviction for an

enumerated felony, whichever is later.

Section 775.084(3)(c), Florida Statutes (2015), provides:

(c) In a separate proceeding, the court shall determine whether the

defendant is a violent career criminal with respect to a primary offense

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committed on or after October 1, 1995. The procedure shall be as

follows:

1. Written notice shall be served on the defendant and the

defendant’s attorney a sufficient time prior to the entry of a plea or

prior to the imposition of sentence in order to allow the preparation of

a submission on behalf of the defendant.

2. All evidence presented shall be presented in open court with full

rights of confrontation, cross-examination, and representation by

counsel.

3. Each of the findings required as the basis for such sentence shall

be found to exist by a preponderance of the evidence and shall be

appealable only as provided in paragraph (d).

4. For the purpose of identification, the court shall fingerprint the

defendant pursuant to s. 921.241.

5. For an offense committed on or after October 1, 1995, if the state

attorney pursues a violent career criminal sanction against the

defendant and the court, in a separate proceeding pursuant to this

paragraph, determines that the defendant meets the criteria under

subsection (1) for imposing such sanction, the court must sentence the

defendant as a violent career criminal, subject to imprisonment

pursuant to this section unless the court finds that such sentence is not

necessary for the protection of the public. If the court finds that it is

not necessary for the protection of the public to sentence the defendant

as a violent career criminal, the court shall provide written reasons; a

written transcript of orally stated reasons is permissible, if filed by the

court within 7 days after the date of sentencing. Each month, the court

shall submit to the Office of Economic and Demographic Research of

the Legislature the written reasons or transcripts in each case in

which the court determines not to sentence a defendant as a violent

career criminal as provided in this subparagraph.

(d)1. A person sentenced under paragraph (4)(d) as a violent career

criminal has the right of direct appeal, and either the state or the

defendant may petition the trial court to vacate an illegal sentence at

any time. However, the determination of the trial court to impose or

not to impose a violent career criminal sentence is presumed

appropriate and no petition or motion for collateral or other

postconviction relief may be considered based on an allegation either

by the state or the defendant that such sentence is inappropriate,

inadequate, or excessive.

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2. It is the intent of the Legislature that, with respect to both direct

appeal and collateral review of violent career criminal sentences, all

claims of error or illegality be raised at the first opportunity and that

no claim should be filed more than 2 years after the judgment and

sentence became final, unless it is established that the basis for the

claim could not have been ascertained at the time by the exercise of

due diligence. Technical violations and mistakes at trials and

sentencing proceedings involving violent career criminals that do not

affect due process or fundamental fairness are not appealable by either

the state or the defendant.

3. It is the intent of the Legislature that no funds, resources, or

employees of the state or its political subdivisions be used, directly or

indirectly, in appellate or collateral proceedings based on violent career

criminal sentencing, except when such use is constitutionally or

statutorily mandated.

Section 775.084(4)(d), Florida Statutes (2015), provides:

(d) The court, in conformity with the procedure established in

paragraph (3)(c), shall sentence the violent career criminal as follows:

1.

In the case of a life felony or a felony of the first degree, for life.

2. In the case of a felony of the second degree, for a term of years not

exceeding 40, with a mandatory minimum term of 30 years’

imprisonment.

3. In the case of a felony of the third degree, for a term of years not

exceeding 15, with a mandatory minimum term of 10 years’

imprisonment.

5

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

The State of Florida charged Reginald Kindle with second-degree murder, but

a jury found him guilty of the lesser-included offense of manslaughter, which is a

second-degree felony. A2-A4. § 782.07(1), Fla. Stat. Under Florida’s sentencing laws,

the maximum sentence Kindle faced for his manslaughter conviction was fifteen

years in prison. § 775.082(3)(d), Fla. Stat.

The State asked the sentencing court to enhance Kindle’s sentence under

Florida’s “Violent Career Criminal” statute. A90-A91. That statute authorizes a

judge to find by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant has three

qualifying prior convictions and was released from prison within five years of the

offense for which he is to be sentenced; if the judge makes those findings, the

statute imposes a mandatory thirty-year minimum sentence and a forty-year

maximum sentence for a second-degree felony. § 775.084(1)(d), Fla. Stat.; §

775.084(3)(c), Fla. Stat.; § 775.084(4)(d), Fla. Stat.. The trial court found that Kindle

had three qualifying prior convictions and that he was released from prison within

five years of his manslaughter offense. A176. The trial court sentenced Kindle to

forty years in prison. A5-A8, A177.

Kindle moved to correct his sentence under Florida Rule of Criminal

Procedure Rule 3.800(b)(2). A8-A27. He argued that his sentence violated the Sixth

Amendment of the United States Constitution because he had never enjoyed the

right to have a jury find beyond a reasonable doubt whether he was released from

prison within five years of his offense and the sentencing court impermissibly relied

on that fact to sentence him above the fifteen-year statutory maximum for his

6

manslaughter offense.

The trial court denied the motion. A46-A49. The trial court reasoned that the

rule in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), does not apply to Florida’s

habitual-offender sentencing statutes, because facts pertaining to recidivism are

sentencing factors distinct from the elements of a crime and therefore need not be

submitted to a jury. A48.

Kindle appealed to Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal, and he

presented the argument that he makes in this petition to that court. A50-A62. The

Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed without opinion. A75. Kindle moved for a

written opinion, asserting that the affirmance conflicted with this Court’s case law

and a written opinion would provide a basis for review in the Florida Supreme

Court. A76-A81. The Fourth District Court of Appeal denied Kindle’s motion,

ending his case in the Florida courts. A82.

Kindle petitions this Court for certiorari.

7

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

I. The interpretation of the Sixth Amendment adopted by the Florida

courts cannot be reconciled with the decisions of the Arizona Court of

Appeals in State v. Large, 321 P. 3d 439 (Az. App. 2014), and State v.

Gross, 31 P. 3d 815 (Az. App. 2001).

According to Florida’s appellate courts, the Sixth Amendment permits a

sentencing court to find that a defendant was released from prison within five years

of the offense for which he is to be sentenced and on that basis enhance his sentence

far above the statutory maximum, even if the defendant has never enjoyed the right

to have a jury find that fact beyond a reasonable doubt. Florida’s appellate courts

have ruled that a defendant’s release from prison falls within the fact-of-a-priorconviction exception to the rule in Apprendi because it “relates to the fact of a prior

conviction.” Williams v. State, 143 So. 3d 423, 424 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014) (citing

Robinson v. State, 793 So. 2d 891, 893 (Fla. 2001)); see also Chapa v. State, 159 So.

3d 361, 362 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015) (adopting the reasoning of Williams). Florida’s

courts are not alone in concluding that a defendant’s release status falls within the

fact-of-a-prior conviction exception. See People v. Montoya, 141 P. 3d 916, 923 (Co.

App. 2006) (holding that a defendant’s parole or probationary status “is a necessary

component of the conviction” and therefore falls within the fact-of-a-prior-conviction

exception).

The courts of the fifty states are not of one mind on this issue. The Arizona

Court of Appeals has rejected Florida’s approach, concluding that “the exception

applied to prior convictions cannot constitutionally be expanded to include other

facts,” such as a defendant’s release status. State v. Gross, 31 P. 3d 815, 819 (Az.

8

App. 2001). The Arizona Court of Appeals has held that the Sixth Amendment

guarantees a defendant the right to have a jury determine his release status at the

time of the offense for which he is to be sentenced before that fact may be used to

enhance his sentence above the maximum for that offense. State v. Large, 321 P. 3d

439, 443-444 (Az. App. 2014). At least one other state court has signaled that it may

follow the rationale of the Arizona Court of Appeals. See People v. Molina, 2014 WL

3590145, at *3 n.5 (Cal. 2d DCA 2014) (“Where, however, the fact that the

defendant is on probation when he or she commits an offense increases the

minimum sentence, Alleyne may require that the prosecution prove the fact of the

defendant’s probation status to a jury.”). The decisions out of Florida and Colorado

cannot be reconciled with the decisions from Arizona. This Court should grant

Kindle’s petition for certiorari to resolve the split of authority.

II. The decision below conflicts with this Court’s interpretation of the

Sixth Amendment in Apprendi and its progeny and those cases’ limited

fact-of-a-prior-conviction exception.

The decisions of the Florida and Colorado courts unmoor the fact-of-a-priorconviction from its constitutional anchor. This Court recognized in Apprendi that

the fact of a prior conviction presents a unique exception to the Sixth Amendment’s

requirement that all facts determining the defendant’s maximum sentence must be

submitted to a jury because a defendant’s prior conviction could not have been

entered unless he previously enjoyed the right to have a jury find beyond a

reasonable doubt the facts constituting the elements of his prior offense. See

Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 496 “([T]here is a vast difference between accepting the

validity of a prior judgment of conviction entered in a proceeding in which the

9

defendant had the right to a jury trial and the right to require the prosecutor to

prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and allowing the judge to find the required

fact under a lesser standard of proof.”). The fact-of-a-prior-conviction exception

departs from this logic when a sentencing court expands it to include facts that the

defendant has never enjoyed the right to have a jury find beyond a reasonable

doubt, such as whether and when a defendant was released from prison. Because

Kindle has never enjoyed the right to have a jury determine beyond a reasonable

doubt whether he committed the offense for which he was sentenced in this case

within five years of his release from prison, his enhanced sentence based on that

fact violates his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.

This Court has limited the fact-of-a-prior-conviction exception in its caselaw

interpreting Congress’s Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). See, e.g., (in

chronological order) Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 590-91 (1990); Shepard

v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 24 (2005), Descamps v. United States, 570 US. 254,

269 (2013); Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243, 2252 (2016). In that context,

criminal defendants have repeatedly called on this Court to determine which facts

about a defendant’s criminal history a sentencing court may consider without

violating his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. This Court’s decisions have

been strikingly consistent: the fact of a prior conviction includes nothing more than

what it says.

This Court first drew the crucial distinction between “the fact of a prior

conviction” and “a fact about a prior conviction” in Shepard v. United States, 544

10

U.S. 24, 25 (2005). In sum, the former does not include the latter. Shepard, 544 U.S.

at 25. Shepard asserted at his sentencing hearing that his prior Massachusetts

conviction for burglary did not count as an ACCA predicate offense because

Massachusetts’ definition of burglary included unlawful entries into places such as

boats and cars, and thus swept more broadly than the generic burglary identified as

a predicate offense by Congress in the ACCA. Id. at 16-17. Because the elements of

Shepard’s Massachusetts burglary offense did not match the elements of generic

burglary, the sentencing court properly refused to count the prior conviction. Id.

The government appealed the sentencing court’s decision to the First Circuit Court

of Appeals, where it argued that the sentencing court could look at police reports to

determine whether Shepard’s conviction was based on an act consistent with

generic burglary. Id. at 17-18. The First Circuit agreed with the government and

reversed the sentencing court. Id. at 18. This Court disagreed.

This Court reasoned that, while Almendarez-Torres arguably allows

sentencing courts to consider “the record of conviction,” it does not authorize

sentencing courts to dig into other facts relating to a prior conviction. Id. at 24-26 1.

This Court drew the crucial distinction: “While the disputed fact here can be

Notably, Justice Thomas, who concurred in this Court’s judgment in

Shepard, departed from the Court in this section of the opinion because it did not go

far enough. Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 24, 26–28 (2005) (J. Thomas,

concurring in part and concurring in the judgment). Justice Thomas wrote

separately to express his view that (1) Apprendi had “eroded” the prior-conviction

exception in its entirety, (2) the Court had wrongly decided Almendarez-Torres, and

(3) as a majority of the Court would later agree, the prior-conviction fact-finding

proposed by the government in Shepard gave rise “to constitutional error, not

doubt.” Id. at 26–28.

1

11

described as a fact about a prior conviction, it is too far removed from the conclusive

significance of a prior judicial record, and too much like the findings subject to

Jones and Apprendi, to say that Almendarez-Torres clearly authorizes a judge to

resolve the dispute.” Id. (emphasis added). This Court recognized the risk of

constitutional error presented by allowing a sentencing court to look into facts apart

from those that were essential to the prior conviction. This Court would later rule

not that there is a risk of constitutional error in allowing a sentencing court to

inquire into facts “about a prior conviction,” there is simply error.

Eight years after Shepard, this Court corrected another Court of Appeal, this

time the Ninth Circuit, after that court broadly construed the prior-conviction

exception as a license for judicial factfinding. Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S.

254 (2013). The Ninth Circuit had held that a sentencing court deciding whether to

count a prior conviction for burglary under a California statute that defined the

crime to include even lawful entries could review plea colloquies and other

documents to determine what the defendant actually did and count the conviction if

the defendant “could have been convicted” of generic burglary. Descamps, 570 U.S.

at 268 (emphasis in original). On review, this Court tersely described the problem

with the Ninth Circuit’s decision, “Yet again, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling flouts our

reasoning—here, by extending judicial factfinding beyond the recognition of a prior

conviction.” Id. at 270. This Court explained that its categorical approach to

identifying predicate convictions under the ACCA “merely assists the sentencing

court in identifying the defendant’s crime of conviction, as we have held the Sixth

12

Amendment permits.” Id. at 269. Any other finding “would (at the least) raise

serious Sixth Amendment concerns if it went beyond merely identifying a prior

conviction.” Id.

This Court in Descamps clearly delineated the constitutional limits of the

fact-of-a-prior-conviction exception. A sentencing court cannot dig into nonelemental facts surrounding a conviction, because it is only the facts that a

defendant had the right to have a jury find in a prior proceeding that a sentencing

court may use to enhance his sentence without violating his Sixth Amendment right

to a jury trial: “And there’s the constitutional rub. The Sixth Amendment

contemplates that a jury—not a sentencing court—will find such facts, unanimously

and beyond a reasonable doubt. And the only facts the court can be sure the jury so

found are those constituting elements of the offense—as distinct from amplifying

but legally extraneous circumstances.” Descamps, 570 U.S. at 269-70. This Court in

Descamps was of course considering whether a sentencing court could look into the

extra-elemental details of the defendant’s conduct on which a prior conviction is

based. But this Court’s observations about the logical limits of the fact-of-a-priorconviction exception nonetheless describe the only reasonable constitutional

rationale for the exception: the only facts that are excepted from the rule in

Apprendi are those to which the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right has already

attached. This includes the elements of the defendant’s prior offense because the

defendant already enjoyed the right to have a jury find those facts beyond a

reasonable doubt. But all facts besides the conviction itself and the elements on

13

which it is based cannot avoid the Sixth Amendment.

In essence, there is no exception to the Sixth Amendment. The sole reason

that the fact of a prior conviction is “excepted” from the rule in Apprendi is because

the Sixth Amendment previously applied to the elements that made the conviction

constitutionally permissible in the first place. As this Court observed in Mathis, a

sentencing judge “can do no more, consistent with the Sixth Amendment, than

determine what crime, with what elements, the defendant was convicted of.” Mathis

v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243, 2252 (2016). The decisions of the Colorado and

Florida courts plainly hold that a sentencing judge can do more.

The analysis that flows from the only constitutional rationale underlying the

fact-of-a-prior-conviction exception leads inexorably to the conclusion that Kindle’s

sentence violates the Sixth Amendment. Whether Kindle was released from prison

within five years of his present offense was not an element of any of his prior

offenses. And Kindle was denied the right to have his jury determine whether he

was released from prison within five years of his present offense before the trial

court enhanced his sentence based on those facts.

If Kindle’s forty-year sentence is allowed to stand, it will be based on a

factual question that was withheld from a jury of his peers. The Sixth Amendment

guarantees Kindle the right to submit the questions of whether and when he was

released from prison to a jury at least once. Because the decision of Florida’s Fourth

District Court of Appeal deprives him of that right, this Court should grant his

petition for a writ of certiorari.

14

CONCLUSION

Because Reginald Kindle has never enjoyed the right to have a jury

determine beyond a reasonable doubt whether he was released from prison within

five years of the offense for which he was sentenced, this Court should grant his

petition for a writ of certiorari.

Respectfully submitted,

CAREY HAUGHWOUT

Public Defender

PAUL EDWARD PETILLO

Assistant Public Defender

Counsel of Record

Office of the Public Defender

Fifteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida

421 Third Street

West Palm Beach, FL 33401

(561) 355-7600

ppetillo@pd15.state.fl.us

appeals@pd15.org

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

15