Smith v. State of Florida

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
SECOND DISTRICT
ABDUL J. SMITH,
Appellant,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
No. 2D2024-2811
February 6, 2026
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Hillsborough County; G. Gregory
Green, Judge.
Blair Allen, Public Defender, and Kevin Briggs, Assistant Public
Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
James Uthmeier, Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
MORRIS, Judge.
In this appeal filed pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738
(1967), the record reflects that prior to trial, Smith was evaluated for
competency.1 After the expert evaluation was performed, the trial court
1 Smith had previously been deemed incompetent to proceed, but
the trial court was subsequently notified that his competency had been
restored. This led the trial court to order a new expert evaluation to
determine Smith's competency to proceed.

2
conducted a competency hearing. At the hearing, both parties stipulated
to the findings in the competency report, and the trial court ultimately
concluded that based on the stipulations, it would rely on the findings
and adjudicate Smith to be competent to proceed. However, the trial
court did not memorialize its oral finding of competency in a written
order. While we affirm the judgment and sentences under review, we
remand for entry of a written order finding Smith competent, nunc pro
tunc to the date of the trial court's oral finding of competency. See
Hampton v. State, 988 So. 2d 103, 106 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008); Bien Aime v.
State, 292 So. 3d 1267, 1267-68 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020).
Affirmed with directions.
ATKINSON and LABRIT, JJ., Concur.
Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.