CAPRA v. STATE (2025)

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.

Richard Rex CAPRA, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Case No. 5D2024-0090

Decided: February 07, 2025

Matthew J. Metz, Public Defender, and John M. Selden, Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant. John M. Guard, Acting Attorney General, and Daren L. Shippy, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

Appellant, Richard Rex Capra, appeals his judgment and sentence arguing, inter alia, that the United States Supreme Court decision in Erlinger v. United States, 602 U.S. 821 (2024), has overruled this court's decision in Simmons v. State, 332 So. 3d 1129 (Fla. 5th DCA 2022), and that his habitual violent felony offender (“HVFO”) sentence is unconstitutional. We reject this argument because even if the HVFO sentence was rendered in error, the error is harmless on this record. See Britten v. State, 181 So. 3d 1215, 1218 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015) (“It is well-settled that Apprendi[¹ ] and Blakely[² ] errors are subject to a harmless error analysis ․” (citing Washington v. Recuenco, 548 U.S. 212, 220–21 (2006))).

Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1. Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000).

2. Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004).

Per Curiam.

Eisnaugle, Boatwright, and Kilbane, JJ., concur.

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