Jose Raul Plasencia v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

Raul Plasencia, a Florida state prisoner serving a 30-year sentence for second-degree murder, in violation of Florida Statutes § 782.04(2), appeals pro se the district court’s denial of Ground Two of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for writ of habe-as corpus. In 2002, a jury convicted Pla-sencia of the 1996 murder of Michaelene Blastic. Plasencia’s guidelines range was 156 to 260 months’ imprisonment. The state trial court imposed a 30-year sentence, which reflected a 100-month upward departure from the guidelines range, based on its own judicial determination that the crime was one of violence…