Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed October 5, 2016.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
________________
No. 3D16-1703
Lower Tribunal No. 96-16796
________________
Alton Lightbourn,
Appellant,
vs.
The State of Florida,
Appellee.
An Appeal under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.141(b)(2) from the
Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Jason E. Bloch, Judge.
Alton Lightbourn, in proper person.
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, for appellee.
Before SUAREZ, C.J., and FERNANDEZ and SCALES, JJ.
SUAREZ, C.J.
Alton Lightbourn appeals the denial of his Florida Rule of Criminal
Procedure 3.800 motion to correct sentence. We affirm because no appeal was
pending at the time the subject motion was filed and because the trial court was
correct in finding that the claims made in the motion are successive.
The motion at issue was filed by Lightbourn on March 16, 2015. The state
responded to that motion on March 27, 2015 and supplemented its response on
February 5, 2016. The trial court properly denied that motion on June 6, 2016.
Lightbourn incorrectly argues that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to rule because
there was an appeal pending at the time of its ruling. That is not so. The most
recent appeal in this Court involving Lightbourn was case number 3D13-2618.
The mandate in that case issued in December 2014, well before Lightbourn filed
his most recent motion. In addition, Lightbourn raised nearly identical claims
relating to the upward departure sentence imposed in 2010 in case numbers 3D12-
14551 and 3D12-2175. Conflict counsel also raised similar issues in case number
3D13-2618. As a result, the claims are successive.
Because there was no pending appeal at the time Lightbourn filed his motion
and because the trial court properly found his claims successive we affirm.
Affirmed.
1 Two other appeals filed by Lightbourn, 3D12-2025 and 13-2534 were petitions
for belated appeals and did not involve substantive argument.
2