HUMPHREY v. STATE (2018)

This proceeding was initiated upon Steven Humphrey's filing of a notice of appeal on April 23, 2018. The notice of appeal bore multiple case numbers and conflicting information. On April 25, 2018, we directed Humphrey to identify the order he was seeking to appeal and to submit a copy to this court so that this court could determine its jurisdiction and classify this proceeding. We specifically directed Humphrey to only include the case number for this proceeding and the related circuit court case numbers for the order on appeal. Humphrey failed to respond to our order. Accordingly, this appeal is dismissed for failure to comply with this court's April 25, 2018, order.

From 2011 to present, Humphrey has initiated over thirty proceedings in this court regarding his criminal charges in Hillsborough County circuit court case numbers 07-CF-18225, 09-CF-4658, and 09-CF-6161. This court per curiam affirmed the appeal of his judgment and sentence in appeal 2D11-4108.

Humphrey has initiated numerous appeals from the denial of postconviction motions. Case numbers 2D14-0309, 2D14-3611, 2D15-1170, 2D16-5360, and 2D17-4707 were per curiam affirmed by this court. Appeal 2D17-4491 was dismissed as duplicative. Appeals 2D18-1080, 2D18-1155, and 2D18-1427 were dismissed as untimely.

In 2D14-4428 and 2D17-4209 Humphrey petitioned this court for a writ of mandamus, but the petitions were denied as moot. Humphrey's mandamus petition in 2D16-5018 was also denied.

Aside from his frequent and meritless appeals and petitions, Humphrey has frequently failed to comply with multiple orders from this court, resulting in the dismissal of several of his cases. Cases 2D15-1689, 2D16-5245, 2D17-4191, 2D17-4580, 2D18-0103, 2D18-0258, 2D18-0496, 2D18-0497, 2D18-0785, 2D18-0986, 2D18-1174, 2D18-1491, 2D18-1571, 2D18-1573, 2D18-1575, 2D18-1579, 2D18-1816, and 2D18-1843 were all dismissed for failing to respond or otherwise comply with orders of this court. In these proceedings, this court was unable to determine its jurisdiction based on Humphrey's notices of appeal or petitions. Frequently, Humphrey included extraneous information including multiple case numbers and dates which compounded the difficulty of interpreting these filings. Humphrey was frequently directed to include only the pertinent case numbers on his filings. However, Humphrey either failed to respond or his responses failed to comply with our orders, resulting in the dismissal of those proceedings.

As of the date of this order, appeals 2D18-1937 and 2D18-1939 are pending with this court and are similarly situated to this appeal. That is, Humphrey has filed an indiscernible notice of appeal and we have issued an order directing him to clarify or provide us with a copy of the order he seeks to appeal.

“[A]ny citizen, including a citizen attacking his or her conviction, abuses the right to pro se access by filing repetitious and frivolous pleadings, thereby diminishing the ability of the courts to devote their finite resources to the consideration of legitimate claims.” State v. Spencer, 751 So. 2d 47, 48 (Fla. 1999). Humphrey's frequent and meritless filings and repeated failure to adhere to our orders burden the limited resources of this court. Moreover, his repeated attempts to invoke this court's jurisdiction and his disregard for our orders interfere with the resolution of genuine disputes.

In view of his numerous meritless filings and repeated failure to comply with the orders of this court, we hereby issue this order for Humphrey to show cause within twenty days of the date of this order why this court should not direct the clerk to reject pleadings in this court related to his three circuit court case numbers unless the filing is related to a pending direct appeal or submitted by a licensed Florida attorney.

BY ORDER OF THE COURT:

SILBERMAN, VILLANTI, and CRENSHAW, JJ., Concur.