KITCHEN v. STATE (2020)

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

John KITCHEN, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 3D19-1722

Decided: February 05, 2020

Before SALTER, FERNANDEZ and LOBREE, JJ.

John Kitchen, in proper person. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, for appellee.

John Kitchen appeals the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed in the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit. The petition is a collateral attack on convictions and sentences in two cases prosecuted in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit and does not pertain to issues regarding his incarceration. Under these circumstances, only the Circuit Court of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit has jurisdiction to consider the merits of the petition. We reverse the order denying the petition because the trial court did not have jurisdiction to consider the merits. Instead, the trial court should have dismissed the petition without prejudice to the petitioner to refile the same in the Circuit Court of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit or should have transferred the petition to that court. See Peoples v. State, 260 So. 3d 365 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018).

We therefore reverse the order denying the petition for writ of habeas corpus and remand with directions to transfer the petition to the Circuit Court of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit in Brevard County, Florida.

Reversed and remanded with instructions.

PER CURIAM.

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