Full Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida Opinion filed August 19, 2020. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing. ________________ No. 3D20-150 Lower Tribunal No. 14-23288 ________________ Dudley Lewis, Appellant, vs. The State of Florida, Appellee. An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Cristina Miranda, Judge. Dudley Lewis, in proper person. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Kayla Heather McNab, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee. Before EMAS, C.J., and MILLER and GORDO, JJ. PER CURIAM. Affirmed. See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.210(b) (requiring court to order a competency hearing if it has “reasonable ground to believe that the defendant is not mentally competent to proceed”) (emphasis added); LaPuma v. State, 456 So. 2d 933 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984) (applying abuse of discretion standard to review of trial court’s failure to order a competency examination). See also Saintiler v. State, 109 So. 3d 303 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013) (concluding that defense counsel's statements regarding defendant's difficulty retaining information and defendant’s prior mental issues (which led to an earlier competency examination and a finding of competency) did not provide reasonable grounds requiring the trial court to order a competency examination); Andrews v. State, 916 So. 2d 964, 966 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005) (holding that, where defendant’s conduct during trial did not otherwise demonstrate reasonable grounds to question defendant’s competence, such grounds were not created where defendant stated in open court that he had “mental problems,” defense counsel told the trial court that he had to “explain a lot of things” to the defendant “more extensively” than normal, and defense counsel never requested a competency examination). 2