Blaise v. State
The Third DCA affirmed denial of Blaise's rule 3.850 motion seeking to vacate a 2008 drug plea based on a co-occupant's affidavit admitting the drugs were his. Although the trial court held an evidentiary hearing and found no reasonable probability Blaise would have rejected the plea under the Long/Grosvenor test, the court separately rejected the State's argument that the evidence could not be 'newly discovered' merely because Blaise always knew the drugs belonged to someone else.
Key facts
- Blaise pleaded guilty to drug charges in 2008 and later filed a rule 3.850 motion seeking to vacate the plea based on a co-occupant's affidavit admitting the drugs belonged to him.
- The trial court held an evidentiary hearing, found the newly discovered evidence did not satisfy the Long/Grosvenor test, and denied the motion.
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Why it matters
This opinion is useful to postconviction practitioners because it explicitly rejects a common State argument — that a defendant's own pre-plea knowledge of a witness's culpability defeats a newly-discovered-evidence… — full analysis with a trial
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