CRAIG LEE, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
The court held that the trial court erred in sentencing the appellant based on a finding of willful failure to appear or commission of a new crime, as the record did not support these findings.
Appellant conditionally pleaded guilty and agreed to sentencing per a plea agreement. The trial court departed from the agreement, imposing a harsher …
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Willful Failure To Appear cases and more on FLexlaw
PER CURIAM.
This is an appeal from a sentence entered upon a conditional plea agreement approved by the court. We reverse and remand with directions that the appellant be sentenced in accord with the plea agreement previously entered, without consideration as to the elements of the agreement pertaining to appellant’s failure to timely appear for sentencing or to his arrest pending sentencing.
We find no evidence to support a finding that the appellant willfully failed to appear for his sentencing hearing or that he committed another crime while on personal recognizance release pending sentencing. To the contrary, the record reflects only evidence of an accidental car breakdown as the cause of appellant’s late appearance for sentencing, and a voluntary dismissal by the state of the charges for which he was arrested and that he claimed arose out of a misunderstanding with his grandfather. In addition, we question, but do not decide, whether a substantial number of years may constitutionally be added to a defendant’s sentence to penalize him for being arrested or upon a finding that there was probable cause for such arrest. We caution trial courts to avoid plea agreements of this nature.
ANSTEAD, C.J., and DELL and WALDEN, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By (14 total)
-
Johnson v. State, 501 So. 2d 158 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987)…SCHWARTZ, Chief Judge, concurring. I concur in the reversal of the defendant’s sentence on the authority of Lee v. State, 471 So. 2d 195 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985).…1 / 2
-
Searcy v. State, 971 So. 2d 1008 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008)…y de minimis where defendant reported six-and-one-half [*1013] hours late due to child’s hospitalization); Johnson v. State, 501 So. 2d 158 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987) (finding defendant’s non-appearance involuntary where he had been arrested); Lee v. State, 471 So. 2d 195 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985) (finding defendant’s delay involuntary where his car broke down on the way to court). The record in this case indicates that the defendant’s conduct was neither involuntary nor de minimis. The defendant agreed in his plea, taken…
-
Ceasar Robinson v. State, 946 So. 2d 565 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006)…lat tire. Robinson further alleged that even if his timely appearance for the sentencing hearing was part of the negotiated plea agreement, nothing in the record demonstrates that Robinson’s late arrival was willful. Robinson relied on Lee v. State, 471 So. 2d 195 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985), Johnson v. State, 501 So. 2d 158, 160-61 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), Green v. State, 680 So. 2d 1072 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996), and Valladares v. State, 754 So. 2d 190, 191 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), to support his claim. Lastly, he alleged that if…
Previewing 3 of 14 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence