PRADEL LUCAS v. State

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed March 17, 2021. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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No. 3D20-1638 Lower Tribunal No. F20-7172 ________________

Pradel Lucas, Appellant,

vs.

The State of Florida, Appellee.

An appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, William Altfield, Judge.

Pradel Lucas, in proper person.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Michael W. Mervine, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before SCALES, MILLER, and LOBREE, JJ.

MILLER, J.

Appellant, Pradel Lucas, a prisoner incarcerated in Miami-Dade County, appeals the summary denial of his petition for habeas corpus. The lower tribunal concluded it lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the claims alleged in the petition. Because Lucas was convicted and sentenced in Broward County and the petition challenges the legality of his conviction, rather than the conditions of his confinement, we affirm without prejudice to the refiling of the petition in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit. See Johnson v. State, 947 So. 2d 1192, 1192-93 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007) (“While a defendant is required to file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the circuit where the defendant is incarcerated when the petition involves an issue regarding the prisoner's incarceration, the converse is true when the petition is based upon the legality of the conviction imposed in another circuit.”) (citations omitted); Calloway v. State, 699 So. 2d 849, 850 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997) (“[A] circuit court has no jurisdiction to review the legality of a conviction in another circuit.”) (alteration in original) (citation omitted).

Affirmed.