WILLIAM SONNY JOHNSON, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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The Florida appellate court reversed an armed robbery conviction and remanded the case because the trial court's judgment and sentence lacked a date stamp or notation indicating when it was filed, preventing the appellate court from determining whether the notice of appeal was timely filed.
The appellate court cannot proceed with the appeal because it is unable to determine the date of rendition of the judgment and sentence, and without this date, jurisdiction cannot be vested in the appellate court. The case is remanded to the trial court to correct this deficiency.
[1] An appeal may not proceed if the order being appealed has not been rendered, as jurisdiction has not vested in the appellate court.
[2] Rendition of an order is defined as the filing of a signed, written order with the clerk of the lower tribunal.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“If the order being appealed has not been rendered, the appeal cannot proceed because jurisdiction has not been vested in the appellate court.”
Establishes the fundamental requirement that rendition must occur before appellate jurisdiction attaches
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceA jury found appellant William Sonny Johnson guilty of armed robbery in violation of Florida Statutes section 812.13(2)(e). The trial court signed a j…
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PER CURIAM.
On the court’s own motion, we consider whether the order being appealed has been rendered so that the appeal may proceed.
A jury found appellant guilty of armed robbery in violation of section 812.-13(2)(e), Florida Statutes. In accordance with that finding the trial court signed a judgment and sentence. Appellant appealed the judgment and sentence.
Pursuant to this court’s internal operating procedures the record, upon receipt, was reviewed to determine, among other things, whether the notice of appeal was timely filed. See Miller v. State, 564 So. 2d 259 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990).
Since the timeliness of the notice of appeal is determined by the date of rendition of the order to be reviewed and the date of the filing of the notice of appeal, we reviewed the judgment and sentence to determine the date of rendition of the orders being appealed.1 Rendition is defined in the Rules of Appellate Procedure as “the filing of a signed, written order with the clerk of the lower tribunal.” Fla.R.App.P. 9.020(g).
If the order being appealed has not been rendered, the appeal cannot proceed because jurisdiction has not been vested in the appellate court. Williams v. State, 324 So. 2d 74, 79 (Fla.1975).
From our review of the record we cannot determine the date of rendition2 of the judgment and sentence. Our inability to determine the date of rendition is caused by the lack of any notation on the judgment and sentence, such as a date stamp, which indicates the date of rendition. Being unable to determine the date of rendition we are unable to determine whether this appeal should proceed.
Accordingly, the record on appeal is returned to the lower tribunal for 20 days from the date of this order with directions for the clerk of the lower tribunal to indicate the date of rendition of the judgment and sentence by noting on the face of the judgment and sentence the date of filing of the judgment and sentence in the clerk’s office.
SHIVERS, C.J., and WENTWORTH and ZEHMER, JJ., concur. . This is an appeal pursuant to Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.140. The time for filing such an appeal is controlled by Rule 9.140(b)(2).
That rule provides in pertinent part: "Commencement. The defendant shall file the notice prescribed by Rule 9.110(d) with the clerk of the lower tribunal at any time between rendition of a final judgment and 30 days following entry of a written order imposing sentence." (Emphasis added). "Entry” is not defined in the Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure. While the Florida Supreme Court has stated that "entry of judgment” and "rendition” are synonymous "for appellate purposes”, Williams v. State, 324 So. 2d 74, 79 (Fla.1975), since entry and rendition do not always mean the same thing, see Casto v. Casto, 404 So. 2d 1046, 1048 (Fla.1981) (under the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure entry of judgment means recording, not filing) the Appellate Court Rules Committee of the Florida Bar may want to address the wording of this rule to avoid potential confusion.
. The index to the Record on Appeal indicates a "date filed” for all the items in the record. We decline to use this "date filed” date in the index as the date of rendition because the index itself has not been certified by the clerk to be correct. We note that many documents in the record do not have a date stamp but rather have a notation "placed in the computer" on the front of the document. We are not sure that "placed in the computer” means the same thing as filed, although the clerk appears to treat them the same.
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Parnell v. State, 642 So. 2d 1092 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994)…that has already been filed is, at best, confusing. When the document does not receive a second date stamp from the clerk, there is nothing on the face of the appellate record to establish that the order has ever been rendered. See Johnson v. State, 573 So. 2d 1021 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991); cf. State v. Sullivan, 640 So. 2d 77 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994) (dismissing appeal from “order” that trial court rubber-stamped on face of motion where record did not reveal that such “order” was ever rendered by filing with clerk’s off…
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Smith v. State, 582 So. 2d 796 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991)…his denial was ever “rendered,” i.e., filed in the record.1 Such similarly signed and dated stamped orders, placed on top of pleadings previously filed, have been held insufficient to invoke the appellate court’s jurisdiction. See Johnson v. State, 573 So. 2d 1021 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991); State v. Moore, 563 So. 2d 115 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990). Accordingly, we dismiss this appeal and remand this cause to the trial court with directions to enter within twenty days an order in a form which is properly appealable. In ord…
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Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Lupica, 17 So. 3d 864 (Fla. 5th DCA 2009)…ment that has already been filed is, at best, confusing. When the document does not receive a second date stamp from the clerk, there is nothing on the face of the appellate record to establish that the order was ever rendered. See Johnson v. State, 573 So. 2d 1021 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991). Although rubber-stamped orders may be appropriate in some limited circumstances, they “should not be used when it is essential to fix a point from which crucial time periods are to be calculated for purposes of rendition .... ”…
Authorities Cited
- Williams v. State, 324 So. 2d 74 (Fla. 1975)
- Casto v. Casto, 404 So. 2d 1046 (Fla. 1981)
- Capps v. KEM, 564 So. 2d 259 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990)