CLAYTON H. CONARD AND DENNIS HARMAN FRIEL, APPELLANTS,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Clayton Conard and Dennis Friel were convicted by jury of securities fraud and scheming to defraud charges arising from a worm farm scam. The court affirmed the convictions but remanded for clarification of ambiguous and logically inconsistent sentences, as the Department of Corrections interpreted them as 20 years while appellants contended they were 15 years.
The convictions are affirmed, but the case is remanded to the trial court for entry of clarified and logically consistent sentences. The mistrial motion claim is without merit.
[1] A sentence is ambiguous and should be clarified by the trial court when its wording is unclear and leads to differing interpretations by the parties and the Department of…
[2] A trial court's sentencing order may be remanded for clarification when the order is ambiguous and lacks logical consistency regarding the concurrent and consecutive natu…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“The appellants point out, inter alia, that there is no logical way for the five years imposed for Count I to run concurrently with the sentences for all of the other; counts, three of which (Counts 7,10 and 19)' were designated as consecutive sentences.”
Demonstrates the logical inconsistency in the trial court's sentencing that necessitated remand for clarification.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAppellants were convicted after jury trial of nine counts of selling unregistered securities, nine counts of fraudulently selling securities, and one …
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COBB, Judge.
This is a timely appeal from the judgments and sentences entered after appellants were convicted after trial by jury of nine counts of selling unregistered securities, nine counts of fraudulently selling securities, and one count of scheming to defraud each, in violations of sections 517.07, 517.302, 517.301, 817.035(2), Florida Statutes (1977). According to appellants, the total terms of the sentences are unclear from the record on appeal. The charges and convictions arose from a worm farm scam.
The defendants were sentenced in the following manner:
Defendants moved for correction or reduction of sentence on the grounds that they were in doubt as to the intent of the court and were of the understanding that the court intended to impose a total sentence of 10 years. This motion was denied. The trial judge’s notes, dated February 7, 1980, show Counts 7, 10, and 19 as consecutive, and show all the other counts as concurrent; while a second note dated February 27, 1980, does not refer to the specific counts by number and does not shed any light on the issue.
The Department of Corrections has interpreted the above sentences as an aggregate of twenty years. The appellants contend it is no more than fifteen years. The state conceded, on oral argument, that the wording of the sentences is ambiguous and should be clarified by the trial court. The appellants point out, inter alia, that there is no logical way for the five years imposed for Count I to run concurrently with the sentences for all of the other; counts, three of which (Counts 7,10 and 19)' were designated as consecutive sentences.
The appellants' remaining point on appeal, the claim that the trial judge erred in denying a mistrial motion,1 is patently without merit.
Accordingly, we affirm the convictions but remand to the trial court for entry of clarified and logically consistent sentencés. It shall not be necessary for the appellants to be present at resentencing. See Campbell v. State, 379 So. 2d 1011 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980).
ORFINGER and SHARP, JJ., concur. . In reading the 19-count information to the sworn panel, the trial judge paused after Count Ten and said: “Ten down, and nine to go,” before reading on. Defense counsel moved for a mistrial, but refused the trial court’s offer of a corrective instruction to the jury to ignore the comment.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Roth v. State, 379 So. 2d 1011 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980)
- Campbell v. State, 379 So. 2d 1011 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980)