ROGER MCCORVEN HAWTHORNE, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Hawthorne appealed the revocation of his community control and probation for cocaine and marijuana possession. The trial court orally found violations of conditions that were not charged or tried, and the written revocation order was inconsistent with the oral pronouncement and the issues actually litigated. The appellate court reversed and remanded for entry of a corrected written revocation order specifying the actual conditions violated.
The court reversed and remanded because the trial court's oral pronouncement was meaningless and not supported by the evidence presented at the hearing, and the written revocation order was both inconsistent with the oral pronouncement and failed to reflect the conditions actually found violated based on the evidence tried.
[1] A written revocation order must conform to the oral pronouncement made at the hearing.
[2] A revocation order is legally insufficient if it purports to find violations that were not alleged or tried.
Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“A written revocation order must conform to the oral pronouncement at the hearing.”
Establishes the fundamental requirement that the written order must match what was orally announced at the revocation hearing.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceHawthorne was placed on community control and probation in November 1989 for drug possession with specific conditions including living without violati…
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PER CURIAM.
Roger McCorven Hawthorne has appealed from an order of the trial court revoking community control and probation. We reverse, and remand for-clarification of the written revocation order. In November 1989, Hawthorne was placed on community control and probation for possession of cocaine, marijuana and paraphernalia, and certain conditions were imposed. Condition (5) required Hawthorne to live without violating the law, (6) that he not use intoxicants to excess, and (20) that he receive drug counseling and evaluation as directed by his probation officer. In May 1990, an affidavit was filed alleging two violations of (5) (possession of crack, and resisting arrest without violence), and violations of (6) (based on positive urine tests) and (20) (missing drug counseling appointments).
At the subsequent hearing, it was decided that only evidence as to the alleged violations of (6) and (20) would be offered. At the end of the hearing, the trial judge orally announced that he found Hawthorne guilty of violating Conditions (4), which had not been charged, and (5), which had not been tried. Neither party objected to these misstatements. Based thereon, the judge revoked community control and probation, and sentenced Hawthorne to 3½ years incarceration. The subsequent written revocation order found that Hawthorne had violated Condition (5) twice. The order was therefore both inconsistent with the oral pronouncement, and was itself incorrect, in that the alleged violations of (5) were not tried.
A written revocation order must conform to the oral pronouncement at the hearing. Hamilton v. State, 578 So. 2d 526 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991). However, there was no meaningful oral pronouncement in this case, in that Conditions (4) and (5) were clearly not at issue. Further, although the written revocation order purports to state grounds for revocation, it is also meaningless in light of the issues tried at the hearing. In McClinton v. State, 576 So. 2d 924 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991), the trial court failed both to make an oral pronouncement of the grounds for revocation, and to state such grounds in the written revocation order. This court reversed and remanded for entry of an amended written order specifying the conditions of probation which were found violated. McClinton at 925. Similarly, in the instant case, there was neither a meaningful oral pronouncement of the grounds for revocation, nor a written order stating grounds consistent with the allegations actually tried. As in McClinton, we therefore reverse and remand for entry of a written revocation order specifying the conditions of community control and probation found violated.
Reversed and remanded with directions.
JOANOS, C.J., and BARFIELD and ZEHMER, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
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Narvaez v. State, 674 So. 2d 868 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996)…of revocation of probation and community control erroneously lists all eleven violations. A written order of revocation must conform to the oral pronouncement at the hearing. Corona v. State, 642 So. 2d 667 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994); Hawthorne v. State, 583 So. 2d 425 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991). Here, the written order lists several violations that were not addressed at the revocation hearing. Consequently, we reverse and remand with instructions to strike the reference to the conditions that the trial court failed to a…
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Bennett v. State, 588 So. 2d 672 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991)…rect oral pronouncement, in that Bennett would thereby receive the benefit of his bargain (no habitual offender status in 89-1551), and the state lose its concomitant benefit (habitual offender status in 89-1474). See also, e.g., Hawthorne v. State, 583 So. 2d 425 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991) (court will not remand to conform written probation revocation order to oral pronouncement when the oral pronouncement was itself incorrect). Based on the foregoing facts and authority, we reverse the written judgments and sente…
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Pinello v. State (Fla. 2d DCA 2020)…s omitted)). That written order "must conform to the oral pronouncement at the hearing." Narvaez v. State, 674 So. 2d 868, 869 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996) (first citing Corona v. State, 642 So. 2d 667 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994); and then citing Hawthorne v. State, 583 So. 2d 425 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991)). Here, the trial court's written order fails to specify the conditions that it found Pinello to have violated. Accordingly, we remand for the court to enter a written order that specifies those conditions consistent with its or…
Authorities Cited
- Hamilton v. State, 578 So. 2d 526 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991)
- Edwards v. State, 576 So. 2d 924 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991)