JOHNNIE LEE FRAZIER, PETITIONER,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, RESPONDENT

Fla. | 1990-04-05
No. 73082
EHRLICH, C.J., and OVERTON and KOGAN, JJ., concur., GRIMES, J., concurs with an opinion, in which SHAW and BARKETT, JJ., concur.
559 So. 2d 1121 Florida Supreme Court (1990) Negative Treatment
Cited by 16 cases

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.

Synopsis

The Florida Supreme Court answered a certified question regarding whether jury instructions based on statutory presumptions in the blood alcohol statute constitute unconstitutional mandatory rebuttable presumptions. The Court answered in the negative and upheld Frazier's DUI manslaughter conviction and sentencing.


Holding

The Court answered the certified question in the negative, holding that the statutory presumptions are constitutional. The Court also upheld both sentences: the fifteen-year DUI manslaughter sentence and the resentenced ten-year sentence on the 1980 conviction with five years credit for time served.


Headnotes

[1] Statutory presumptions regarding blood alcohol levels in jury instructions are constitutional.

[2] A true split sentence consists of a total period of confinement with a portion of that confinement suspended and the defendant placed on probation for the suspended porti…

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Key Quotes

“Whether jury instructions based on the statutory presumptions contained in § 316.1934(2)(c) constitute unconstitutional mandatory rebuttable presumptions.”

States the certified question of great public importance presented to the Court

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Facts & Procedural History

In 1980, Frazier was sentenced to ten years imprisonment on a sexual battery charge, with the first five years active and the second five years suspen…

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Opinion of the Court
McDONALD, Justice.

McDONALD, Justice.

In Frazier v. State, 530 So. 2d 986 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988), the district court certified the following question as being of great public importance:

Whether jury instructions based on the statutory presumptions contained in § 316.1934(2)(c) constitute unconstitutional mandatory rebuttable presumptions.

Id. at 989.1 The district court held subsection 316.1934(2)(c), Florida Statutes (Supp. 1986), regarding blood alcohol level, unconstitutional, but, applying the harmless error test, affirmed Frazier’s DUI manslaughter conviction. We recently held subsection 316.1934(2)(c) constitutional. State v. Rolle, 560 So. 2d 1154 (Fla.1990). Therefore, we answer the certified question in the negative and approve the result reached by the district court, but quash that portion of its opinion dealing with this issue.

Frazier raises two other issues,2 only one of which we discuss. In 1980 a trial court sentenced Frazier to ten years’ imprisonment on a sexual battery charge. The court ordered that Frazier serve the first five years and suspended the second five years, placing Frazier on probation for that five-year period. Thus, Frazier’s 1980 sentence constituted “a ‘true split sentence’ consisting of a total period of confinement with a portion of the confinement period suspended and the defendant placed on probation for that suspended portion.” Poore v. State, 531 So. 2d 161, 164 (Fla.1988).

Frazier’s later DUI manslaughter conviction produced a recommended guidelines sentence of seventeen to twenty-two years. The maximum statutory sentence for that offense is fifteen years, however, and the trial court sentenced Frazier to fifteen years’ imprisonment on that conviction. The court also revisited Frazier’s 1980 sentence because the DUI manslaughter conviction constituted a probation violation. The court resentenced Frazier to ten years’ •imprisonment on the 1980 conviction with credit for time served. Frazier is entitled to a full five-year credit on his original sentence. State v. Green, 547 So. 2d 925 (Fla.1989).

Contrary to Frazier’s current claim, he did not receive a twenty-five-year sentence. His resentencing on the 1980 conviction is consistent with Poore because the court did not “order new incarceration that exceeded] the remaining balance of the withheld or suspended portion of the original sentence.” 531 So. 2d at 164. We therefore approve the district court’s affirmance of both the fifteen-year sentence and the ten-year, with credit for five years.served, sentence.

It is so ordered.

EHRLICH, C.J., and OVERTON and KOGAN, JJ., concur. GRIMES, J., concurs with an opinion, in which SHAW and BARKETT, JJ., concur. . We have jurisdiction pursuant to art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. . As did the district court, we find no merit to his claim that the trial court erred in not instructing the jury that the victim’s not wearing a seatbelt constituted a defense to the charge against Frazier.

Concurrence
GRIMES, Justice,

GRIMES, Justice,

concurring.

While I agree with the outcome of this case, I cannot totally agree with the reasoning by which the result was reached.

In Poore v. State, 531 So. 2d 161 (Fla.1988), which also involved a “true split sentence,” we pointed out that “the cumulative incarceration imposed after violation of probation always will be subject to any limitations imposed by the sentencing guidelines recommendation.” Id. at 165. As expressed in his dissenting opinion, only Justice McDonald believed that this rationale is inapplicable where the original sentencing occurs prior to the adoption of the guidelines.

The single guidelines scoresheet which was prepared for Frazier’s DUI manslaughter and sexual battery convictions called for a recommended guidelines sentence of seventeen to twenty-two years. Therefore, at first blush it would appear that Frazier’s cumulative sentence of twenty-five years exceeded the guidelines. However, because a probation violation was involved, the judge was authorized to impose a sentence within the next higher cell. See Peters v. State, 531 So. 2d 121 (Fla.1988) (where defendant is sentenced for violation of probation and new crime, points may be scored for legal constraint, and the judge may also “bump” the sentence one cell). Because the next higher guidelines cell was twenty-two to twenty-seven years, the twenty-five-year sentence was proper. SHAW and BARKETT, JJ., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • William Earl Union v. State, 642 So. 2d 91 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994)
    …struction was denied. During deliberations, the jury inquired as to the difference between vehicular homicide and reckless driving.2 Appellant contends that Frazier v. State, 530 So. 2d 986 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988), approved in part and quashed in part, 559 So. 2d 1121 (Fla.1990), is not dispositive of the issue raised here. In Frazier, the defendant was apparently under the influence of alcohol and was driving the wrong way down a street. When the police followed and turned on their blue light, defendant accelera…
  • Tyner v. State, 805 So. 2d 862 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001)
    …seat belt was not a defense to DUI/manslaughter. We find no error in the giving of the complained-of instruction. Union v. State, 642 So. 2d 91 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994); Frazier v. State, 530 So. 2d 986 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988), aff'd in part, rev’d in part, 559 So. 2d 1121 (Fla.1990). Affirmed. PARKER, A.C.J., and SILBERMAN, J., Concur.…
  • Johnson v. State, 641 So. 2d 970 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994)
    …he sentence is the remainder of a true split sentence. See Owens v. State, 557 So. 2d 199 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990). In the alternative, the entire initial sentence can be reimposed with full credit for the length of the initial sentence. Frazier v. State, 559 So. 2d 1121 [*972] (Fla.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 834, 111 S.Ct. 102, 112 L.Ed.2d 73 (1990). In this case, this alternative would result in a six-year sentence with prison credit for three years. Because this case involves an offense occurring prior to the enac…

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