DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA FOURTH DISTRICT GRANVILLE WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee. No. 4D22-767 [May 24, 2023] Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County; Stacy M. Ross, Judge; L.T. Case No. 00-12637CF10A. Matthew J. Conigliaro of Carlton Fields, P.A., Tampa, for appellant. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Alexandra A. Folley, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee. MAY, J. This is a case of first impression regarding a Florida law protecting human trafficking victims. The defendant appeals an order denying his amended petition to expunge his criminal record based on that law, section 943.0583, Florida Statutes (2018). He argues the trial court erred in failing to apply the statutory presumption in favor of expunction. We agree and reverse. In 2001, the defendant pled guilty to one count of trafficking cocaine.1 The trial court sentenced him to three years in prison with credit for 317 days served, followed by three years’ probation as a youthful offender. 2 1 The State explained customs officials stopped the defendant at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport after arriving on a flight from Jamaica. An inspector found fourteen pellets in a bottle in his luggage and ten pellets in his groin area. The defendant had also swallowed ten latex-covered pellets. 2The trafficking charge carried a penalty of up to thirty years in prison and a $100,000 fine, with a minimum mandatory sentence of seven years. Discovery confirmed while the defendant was in Jamaica, adults approached him and convinced him to be a mule — to transport pellets into Florida. He was told he would make a lot of money but not that the pellets contained cocaine. The plea hearing transcript further revealed the defendant was seventeen at the time he committed the offense. He was a high school senior and had already been accepted into the U.S. Army. While incarcerated prior to his plea, he obtained a GED certificate. He had no prior criminal history. His attorney asserted two mitigating factors for sentencing: (1) the defendant was a youthful offender, and (2) he was “acting under the influence of duress or the domination of another individual.” The defendant’s mother testified her son was friendly but young and gullible. He stood before the court on a criminal charge “because some underhanded person has used him.” The State asked the court to sentence the defendant to four years in prison with two years of community control because: [P]eople who use young people in other countries to haul drugs into our states, they tell them that even if you get caught, nothing bad will happen to you. You’re a juvenile. Don’t worry about it. The trial court required the defendant to plead guilty. The defendant agreed to do so and admitted knowing he was transporting cocaine. • The Petition In 2018, the defendant petitioned to expunge the criminal history associated with his cocaine trafficking conviction. The petition stated the defendant had been a minor and …
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