TRACY HARRIS, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Tracy Harris appealed his sentence on the ground that the trial court failed to award him credit for time served in jail prior to sentencing, as required by Florida law. The appellate court found that the trial court violated the mandatory requirements of Florida Statute 921.161(1) by not determining and crediting the jail time, and remanded for correction.
The trial court's failure to award credit for jail time served prior to sentencing violates the mandatory requirements of Florida Statute 921.161(1), rendering the sentence illegal. This error may be raised on direct appeal even without prior objection in the trial court, and the case must be remanded for the trial court to determine the actual jail time served and award appropriate credit.
[1] A sentence that does not allow for proper credit for time served in jail prior to sentencing is an illegal sentence.
[2] The failure to award appropriate credit for jail time served may be raised on direct appeal, even in the absence of an objection in the trial court.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“A sentence of imprisonment shall not begin to run before the date it is imposed, but the court imposing a sentence shall allow a defendant credit for all of the time he spent in the county jail before sentence.”
Statement of the mandatory statutory requirement that establishes the court's duty to award jail time credit
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceHarris was convicted and sentenced by the trial court. Prior to sentencing, Harris spent some amount of time in county jail. However, the trial court …
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SHIVERS, Senior Judge.
This case comes before this court pursuant to a brief filed in accordance with Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967). Upon an independent examination of the record, we determine that the trial court did not award appellant credit for time served in jail prior to his sentencing. Section 921.161, Florida Statutes (1991), provides:
(1) A sentence of imprisonment shall not begin to run before the date it is imposed, but the court imposing a sentence shall allow a defendant credit for all of the time he spent in the county jail before sentence. The credit must be for a specified period of time and shall be provided for in the sentence.
The requirements of section 921.161(1) are mandatory, and a sentence that does not allow for proper credit for time served is an illegal sentence. Moorer v. State, 556 So. 2d 778 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990). See also Kio v. State, 624 So. 2d 744, 748 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993), rev. denied, 634 So. 2d 627 (Fla.1994). Even in the absence of an objection in the trial court, the error of failure to award appropriate credit for jail time served may be raised on direct appeal. Kio, 624 So. 2d at 748. In the instant case, although appellant apparently spent some amount of time in jail prior to sentencing, the court did not determine the amount of time served and failed to award that time as credit when he sentenced appellant.
Accordingly, this case is hereby remanded to the trial court with directions to determine the amount of time that appellant served in jail prior to sentencing and to award appellant the appropriate jail time credit on his sentence.
MINER and ALLEN, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (U.S. 1967)
- KIO v. State, 624 So. 2d 744 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993)
- Moorer v. State, 556 So. 2d 778 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990)