JOHN CURTIS IVEY, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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John Curtis Ivey challenges his sentences imposed following probation revocation, arguing the trial court failed to provide written reasons for departing from sentencing guidelines. The court reverses and remands because when guidelines recommend life imprisonment and the court imposes life plus consecutive years, written reasons for the departure are required but were not provided.
The court holds that when guidelines recommend a life sentence and the trial court imposes life plus a consecutive term of years, such sentence is a departure requiring written reasons. Because the trial court failed to provide these written reasons, the sentence is reversed and remanded.
[1] A departure from sentencing guidelines that recommend a life sentence requires written reasons from the trial court.
[2] A trial court's failure to provide written reasons for a departure from sentencing guidelines necessitates reversal and remand.
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“When the guidelines recommend a life sentence and the trial court imposes life plus a consecutive term of years, such sentence is a departure requiring written reasons.”
Establishes the primary legal principle that life plus consecutive years requires written departure reasons
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceIvey was sentenced in four separate cases totaling sixty years plus life imprisonment. The guidelines scoresheet recommended life imprisonment with a …
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PATTERSON, Judge.
The appellant challenges the sentences imposed upon him following the revocation of his probation. He argues that the trial court erred in failing to provide written reasons to support its departure from the sentencing guidelines. We reverse and remand to permit the trial court to reconsider the appellant’s sentence.
On February 21,1991, the court sentenced the appellant in case number 91-14767 to fifteen years in prison for attempted robbery with a firearm, and to fifteen years for aggravated battery. The sentences were to run consecutively to each other and to a life sentence imposed in case number 91-15313. In case number 91-14831, the court sentenced the appellant to five years in prison for burglary of a conveyance and to five years for grand theft. The sentences were to run concurrently with each other, but consecutively to the sentence in ease number 91-14767. In case number 91-15313, the trial court sentenced the appellant to life in prison for armed burglary of a dwelling, to five years for grand theft and to five years for grand theft of a firearm. These sentences were to run concurrently with each other, but consecutive to the sentence in case number 91-14831. The sentences in the four eases totalled sixty years1 plus life in prison. The appellant’s guidelines scoresheet recommended life imprisonment, with a permitted range of twenty-seven years to life.
When the guidelines recommend a life sentence and the trial court imposes life plus a consecutive term of years, such sentence is a departure requiring written reasons. See Rease v. State, 493 So. 2d 454 (Fla.1986); Wood v. State, 593 So. 2d 557 (Fla. 5th DCA 1992); Dow v. State, 610 So. 2d 23 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992), dismissed, 621 So. 2d 432 (Fla.1993). The trial court failed to provide written reasons to support its decision to depart from the guidelines; therefore, we reverse the appellant’s sentence.
The transcript of the sentencing hearing does not show that the trial court intended to depart from the guidelines. Further, the record does not contain a scoresheet from which we could conclude that a departure was intended. Thus, since it is unclear whether the trial court knew it was departing from the guidelines, on remand, the court may either enter written reasons to support the departure or it may resentence the appellant within the guidelines. See State v. Betancourt, 552 So. 2d 1107 (Fla.1989); Merritt v. State, 567 So. 2d 1031 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990).
Reversed and remanded.
HALL, A.C.J., and PARKER, J., concur. . The court orally sentenced the appellant to life plus sixty-five years; however, the written sentences total life plus sixty years. The state contends that the trial court intended the sentences in case number 91-15313 to be consecutive to each other rather than concurrent, as the written sentence reflects.
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Richardson v. State, 653 So. 2d 432 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995)…6945. See Grady. However, the trial court departed from the sentencing guidelines in ordering the life imprisonment sentence for that offense to run consecutively to the term-of-year sentences for the violation of probation cases. See Ivey v. State, 633 So. 2d 530, 531 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994) (‘When the guidelines recommend a life sentence and the trial court imposes life plus a consecutive term of years, such sentence is a departure requiring written reasons.”). Because the trial court did not provide written rea…
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Shortridge v. State, 681 So. 2d 729 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996)…reversible error in appellant’s convictions, but remand to correct certain sentencing errors. Appellant was sentenced to life for the murder conviction, followed by a consecutive seventeen-year term for the robbery conviction. Under Ivey v. State, 633 So. 2d 530, 531 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994), ‘when the guidelines recommend a life sentence and the trial court imposes life plus a consecutive term of years, such sentence is a departure requiring written reasons.” The court here offered no written reasons for the dep…
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Ivey v. State, 775 So. 2d 306 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999)…conviction motion filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. We affirm that portion of the order which addresses the allegation of trial counsel’s ineffectiveness during resen-tencing following this court’s mandate in Ivey v. State, 633 So. 2d 530 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994). We reverse the denial of Ivey’s claim attacking counsel at the time he initially entered his plea to the crimes for which he stands convicted. Ivey asserted in his motion that his trial counsel assured him that by entering a pl…
Authorities Cited
- State v. Betancourt, 552 So. 2d 1107 (Fla. 1989)
- Rease v. State, 493 So. 2d 454 (Fla. 1986)
- Merritt v. State, 567 So. 2d 1031 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990)
- Wood v. State, 593 So. 2d 557 (Fla. 5th DCA 1992)
- DOW v. State, 610 So. 2d 23 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992)