STATE of Florida, Appellant,
v.
Anthony W. BROOM, Appellee.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.
*640 Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Kim W. Munch, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellant.
Bruce G. Howie of Tanney, Forde, Donahey, Eno & Tanney, P.A., Clearwater, for appellee.
PER CURIAM.
The state appeals an order granting a petition for writ of habeas corpus and ordering that appellee be retried within 120 days or be released from custody. We reverse.
Following a jury trial in Polk County Circuit Court, appellee was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He appealed his conviction to this court, and the judgment and sentence were affirmed. Broom v. State,
Subsequently, appellee was transferred to an institution in Pinellas County. Thereafter, he filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in Pinellas County Circuit Court and an amendment thereto, all of which challenged the legality of the Polk County judgment. The petition was at first denied by the Pinellas County circuit judge; but on rehearing, the petition for writ of habeas corpus was granted, and the state filed this appeal.
Prior to the adoption of Criminal Procedure Rule No. 1 (now Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850, hereinafter referred to as "Rule 3"), the proper procedure for collaterally attacking a judgment and sentence in Florida, post-judgment and postappeal, was by filing a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the county in which the petitioner was incarcerated. However, because of the flood of habeas petitions stemming from the retroactive application of the decision of Gideon v. Wainwright,
Rule 3 contains the following reference to habeas corpus:
An application for writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a prisoner who is authorized to apply for relief by motion pursuant to this rule, shall not be entertained if it appears that the applicant has failed to apply for relief, by motion, to the court which sentenced him, or that such court has denied him relief, unless it also appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.
Appellee argues that the Pinellas County circuit judge herein had authority to discharge him from his Polk County judgment and sentence pursuant to habeas corpus because the Rule 3 motions filed in Polk County were inadequate. He alleges that the court never reached the merits of his second rule 3 motion, but denied his motion based on the fact that one of his points had been raised in his first motion and the other points should have been raised at that time. Appellee disputes the correctness of the trial judge's conclusion that the second Rule 3 motion was an abuse of process and the summary denial thereof.
We think that the proper method to challenge a Rule 3 order, whether or not summarily denied, is by appeal and not by filing a habeas corpus petition. See Darden v. Wainwright,
There are two fundamental defects in the order appealed. First, a circuit court has no jurisdiction to review the legality of a conviction in another circuit and to order a new trial therefor. See State ex rel. Renaldi v. Sandstrom,
When Rule 3 states that habeas may still be used if Rule 3 is "inadequate or ineffective" to test the legality of detention, it does not mean in areas in which Rule 3 is applicable (collateral attack of the judgment or sentence). Rather, habeas is still viable in areas in which Rule 3 does not apply at all because those matters do not involve a collateral attack of the judgment and sentence, such as: (1) to attack computations of gain time and other determinations of the parole and probation commission, see Lowe v. Fla. Parole & Probation Comm'n,
We reject appellee's constitutional argument that this interpretation constitutes a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The enactment of Rule 3 merely provided a substitute remedy in place of habeas corpus in its former role as a vehicle to collaterally attack a judgment and sentence in *642 Florida. To allow habeas corpus as a means of review of a conviction after direct appeal and subsequent to Rule 3 collateral attack and appeal therefrom would take away any measure of finality in criminal judgments and would be contrary to the intent of Rule 3.
We therefore reverse the order granting petition for writ of habeas corpus.
SCHEB, Acting C.J., and CAMPBELL and HALL, JJ., concur.
