STANLEY HARRIS, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Stanley Harris appealed a circuit court order that partially granted his motion to correct sentence by allowing additional credit for gain time earned while in the Department of Corrections custody, but only against his original count two conviction and not against count four which had not resulted in an original prison sentence. The appellate court affirmed, holding that concurrent sentences need not be coterminous when a defendant has earned different amounts of credit time against each sentence.
The court affirmed the trial court's decision, holding that concurrent sentences need not be coterminous when a defendant has earned different amounts of credit time against each sentence. Credit for gain time earned should apply only to the sentence against which time was actually earned, following the principle that concurrent does not necessarily mean coterminous.
[1] Gain time awarded while in custody may be credited against a sentence, even if the original sentence for that count did not include incarceration.
[2] Concurrent sentences do not necessarily mean coterminous when a prisoner has earned different amounts of credit time against individual sentences.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“concurrent does not necessarily mean coterminous in the event the prisoner has earned more credit-time against one sentence than against others”
Establishes the core holding that concurrent sentences need not result in identical credit calculations
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceHarris was sentenced on April 10, 1987, on two counts: count two received 366 days in prison followed by five years probation, and count four received…
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PER CURIAM.
Stanley Harris appeals an order of the circuit court which granted in part and denied in part his motion to correct sentence. We affirm.
On April 10, 1987, Harris was sentenced on two separate counts of a multi-count information. As to count two he received a split sentence of 366 days in prison followed by five years probation. A separate five-year term of probation, to run concurrently with the first, was imposed in count four. On March 17, 1989, having been released from prison and violated probation, Harris was resentenced to concurrent terms of three and one-half years in prison. He received credit for all time spent in jail awaiting sentence and, against count two, for the time actually spent in prison following the 1987 sentencing.
In his motion Harris sought additional credit for gain time awarded while in the custody of the Department of Corrections — that is, for'the entire year-and-a-day prison sentence. See State v. Green, 547 So. 2d 925 (Fla.1989). The trial court agreed, but only to an extent. Noting that Harris’s initial prison sentence was imposed for count two only, it increased the credit-time by the amount requested against the new sentence for that count. However, since count four did not originally result in a prison sentence, the court disputed that Harris had earned any additional time against the 1989 sentence — in effect holding that Harris’s existing sentences are overlapping but staggered.
This conclusion is consistent with our holding in Keene v. State, 500 So. 2d 592 (Fla. 2d DCA 1986). Relying on Daniels v. State, 491 So. 2d 543 (Fla.1986), Keene had sought equal credit-time against seven concurrent sentences. However, unlike Daniels, Keene involved a situation wherein the defendant “did not spend the same time in jail awaiting sentence on each offense because he had been arrested for each crime on different dates.” 500 So. 2d at 593. In other words, “concurrent” does not necessarily mean “coterminous” in the event the prisoner has “earned” more credit-time against one sentence than against others. We do not believe that State v. Green, which did not feature a sentencing structure exactly like that in the present case, and which did speak in terms of time “earned,” should be viewed as requiring a contrary result.
Affirmed.
RYDER, A.C.J., and LEHAN and ALTENBERND, JJ., concur.
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Tripp v. State, 622 So. 2d 941 (Fla. 1993)…the second conviction. Accord Sylvester v. State, 572 So. 2d 947 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990); Ford v. State, 572 So. 2d 946 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990); Pacheco v. State, 565 So. 2d 832 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990), review denied, 576 So. 2d 289 (Fla.1991); Harris v. State, 557 So. 2d 198 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990); State v. Folsom, 552 So. 2d 1194 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989); State v. Rodgers, 540 So. 2d 872 (Fla. 4th DCA 1989). However, the court expressed concern that its holding might conflict with the spirit of the sentencing guidelines and the…
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Price v. State, 598 So. 2d 215 (Fla. 5th DCA 1992)…asis in original). See also Bell v. State, 573 So. 2d 10, 11 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990) (holding that “[w]hen a defendant receives concurrent sentences, the credit must be applied to each of the concurrent sentences”). However, as noted in Harris v. State, 557 So. 2d 198 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990), concurrent sentences are not necessarily coterminous, and as a result, when a defendant does not spend the same time in jail awaiting sentence on each of several offenses because the defendant was arrested on each offense on diff…
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State v. Tripp, 591 So. 2d 1055 (Fla. 2d DCA 1991)…jail credit to the defendant for time that he had served on a separate conviction. We agree. Consistent with our decisions in Pacheco v. State, 565 So. 2d 832 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990), review denied, 576 [*1056] So. 2d 289 (Fla.1991), and Harris v. State, 557 So. 2d 198 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990), we reverse the sentence and remand for resen-tencing without jail credit for time served on the separate conviction. Our decision follows similar decisions of the Fourth and Fifth Districts. Sylvester v. State, 572 So. 2d 947 (F…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- State v. Green, 547 So. 2d 925 (Fla. 1989)
- Daniels v. State, 491 So. 2d 543 (Fla. 1986)
- Keene v. State, 500 So. 2d 592 (Fla. 2d DCA 1986)