Antonio Zaldivar v. State of Florida

Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed December 31, 2025.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
________________
No. 3D24-0379
Lower Tribunal No. F14-12403
________________
Antonio Zaldivar,
Appellant,
vs.
State of Florida,
Appellee.
An Appeal under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.141(b)(2) from
the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Andrea R. Wolfson, Judge.
Law Offices of Michelle Walsh, P.A., and Michelle Walsh, for appellant.
James Uthmeier, Attorney General, and Magaly Rodriguez, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee.
Before FERNANDEZ, LINDSEY, and LOBREE, JJ.
PER CURIAM.

2
Antonio Zaldivar appeals the trial court’s order denying in part his
motion for post-conviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure
3.850. We affirm.
When a defendant raises a scoresheet error pursuant to rule 3.850,
“any error is harmless if the record conclusively shows that the trial court
would have imposed the same sentence using a corrected scoresheet.”
Brooks v. State, 969 So. 2d 238, 241 (Fla. 2007) (emphasis in original); see
also State v. Anderson, 905 So. 2d 111, 118 (Fla. 2005) (“Because it is
essential for the trial court to have the benefit of a properly calculated
scoresheet when deciding upon a sentence, we agree that the would-have-
been-imposed standard should apply to motions filed under rule 3.850 to
correct scoresheet error.”).
Here, the trial court was clear that it intended to sentence Zaldivar to
the bottom of the guidelines. Upon learning of the scoresheet error, the trial
court resentenced Zaldivar from 204.75 months to 165.45 months—the
bottom of the guidelines. Notably, the 165.45 months re-sentence is exactly
what Zaldivar requested in his rule 3.850 motion.
Further, we reject Zaldivar’s claim that the trial court’s denial of his
request to vacate his plea is manifest injustice. 	As our sister court has
stated:

3
The 	term 	“manifest 	injustice,” 	which 	has 	been
acknowledged as an exception to procedural bars to
postconviction claims in only the rarest and most
exceptional of situations, [1] now is abused widely by
postconviction 	litigants. 	Courts 	are 	routinely
confronted 	with 	untimely 	and 	successive
postconviction challenges, which cavalierly attempt
to circumvent the bars simply by asserting “manifest
injustice.” However, rule 3.850 contains no “manifest
injustice” exception to the rule's time limitation or bar
against filing successive postconviction motions.
Cuffy v. State, 190 So. 3d 86, 87 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015) (emphasis added).
Accordingly, we hold that the trial court has committed no error and
affirm.
Affirmed.
[1] In Adams v. State, we found manifest injustice applied to grant an
otherwise untimely 3.850 motion. See 957 So. 2d 1183, 1186–87 (Fla. 3d
DCA 2006). 	However, Adams was a rare and exceptional situation where
the defendant was serving a life sentence for violating probation by returning
merely one half hour later than required, despite his lack of temporal
awareness being a documented mental deficit. See id. at 1187. That is not
the case here. Zaldivar is not serving a life sentence nor claiming his failure
to report back on time after furlough was a result of a mental deficit. Instead,
Zaldivar was sentenced for failing to surrender and complete his prison
sentence following furlough. 	Ultimately, he was gone for several months.
Cf. id. Further, his motion, is directed at the State’s actions before he entered
his guilty plea.