DERRICK WEST, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 2000-05-24
No. 4D99-2537
DELL and STONE, JJ., concur.
758 So. 2d 1230 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2000) Caution
Cited by 10 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

Derrick West was convicted of two counts of robbery with a firearm and one count of carjacking with a firearm, and sentenced to three concurrent life sentences as a prison releasee reoffender with an additional habitual violent felony offender designation. The Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed his convictions but reversed his sentence, holding that dual sentencing under both the prison releasee reoffender and habitual violent felony offender statutes for the same offenses violates double jeopardy principles.


Holding

The court held that imposing sentences under both the prison releasee reoffender and habitual violent felony offender statutes for the same offenses constitutes double jeopardy and is illegal, regardless of whether the dual sentences actually increase the total days to be served. The trial court must vacate the habitual felony offender sentence.


Headnotes

[1] Sentencing a defendant as both a prison releasee reoffender and a habitual violent felony offender for the same offenses violates double jeopardy principles.

[2] The imposition of a sentence under both the prison releasee reoffender statute and the habitual offender statute constitutes double jeopardy and is illegal.

Previewing 2 of 5 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

Key Quotes

“The imposition of a sentence under both statutes constitutes double jeopardy and is illegal.”

The court's holding establishing that dual sentencing under both statutes violates double jeopardy principles

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

West was convicted of two counts of robbery with a firearm and one count of carjacking with a firearm. He was sentenced to three concurrent life sente…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
STEVENSON, J.

STEVENSON, J.

Derrick Devon West, the appellant, was convicted of two counts of robbery with a firearm and a single count of carjacking with a firearm. Following his conviction, West was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences as a prison releasee reoffen-der 1; in addition, in sentencing West, the trial judge checked off the box for “habitual violent felony offender”2 and ordered that West serve a fifteen-year mandatory minimum for each of the three offenses. On appeal, West challenges both his convictions and his sentence. We affirm West’s convictions, but find merit in his contention that sentencing him as both a prison releasee reoffender and an habitual violent felony offender for the same offenses violated double jeopardy principles.

This court first addressed the issue raised by West — that sentencing a defendant under both the prison releasee reof-fender scheme and the habitual offender scheme for the same offense violates double jeopardy — in Adams v. State, 750 So. 2d 659 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999). In Adams, the defendant was convicted of burglary of an occupied dwelling and then sentenced as both an habitual offender and a prison releasee reoffender. Under the habitual offender statute, Adams faced a potential sentence of thirty years, but would be eligible for early release after completing 85% of his sentence. Under the prison releasee reoffender statute, Adams faced a sentence of fifteen years; however, under the Prison Releasee Reof-fender Act, Adams was not eligible for any early release, i.e., he would serve 100% of the sentence imposed. The judge sentenced Adams to thirty years, the maximum available under the habitual felony offender statute, specifying that the first fifteen years were to be served as a prison releasee reoffender. This court concluded that by combining the two sentencing schemes, the trial judge had achieved a greater total sentence.

In the instant case, if the appellant were sentenced as an HFO, and would be required to serve 85% of the sentence, given all allowable credits, he would serve approximately 25.5 years, more than the maximum under the PRR Act. However, by sentencing him to the first fifteen years as a PRR, for which no gain time is credited, appellant would only accumulate the gain time in the last fifteen years, and would serve 12.75 additional years, or 27.75 years minimum, which would deprive him of allowable gain túne under the HFO statute.

750 So. 2d at 660. This court then held that the Legislature did not intend this “double sentence” and held that sentencing Adams under both statutes violated double jeopardy principles. “The imposition of a sentence under both statutes constitutes double jeopardy and is illegal.” Id. at 662.

The State contends that Adams is distinguishable from the facts present here in that the imposition of both an habitual offender sentence and a prison releasee reoffender sentence does not serve to actually increase the number of days that West will be required to serve. While we acknowledge that this is true in West’s case, we nonetheless hold that the dual sentences for the same offenses constitute double jeopardy. See Glave v. State, 745 So. 2d 1065 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999). Accordingly, we reverse West’s sentence and remand with directions that the trial court vacate the habitual felony offender sentence. See Adams, 750 So. 2d at 662 (holding that “court can only decline to enter a PRR sentence when it imposes a harsher HFO sentence”); see also Glave, 745 So. 2d at 1065-66 (on rehearing).

In so holding, we recognize that our holding conflicts with those of our sister courts in Grant v. State, 745 So. 2d 519 (Fla. 2d DCA), review granted, No. SC99-164, 761 So. 2d 329 (Fla. Apr. 12, 2000), Smith v. State, 754 So. 2d 100 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000), and Alfonso v. State, 761 So. 2d 1231 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), and, as we did in Brooks v. State, No. 4D99-1017, — So. 2d -, 2000 WL 526040 (Fla. 4th DCA May 3, 2000), certify the conflict.

AFFIRMED in part and REVERSED in part.

DELL and STONE, JJ., concur. . See § 775.082(8), Fla. Stat. (1997). Section 775.082 was subsequently amended and the prison releasee reoffender sentencing scheme is now found at section 775.082(9), Florida Statutes (1999).

. See § 775.084(l)(b), Fla. Slat. (1997).


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Valentino v. State, 765 So. 2d 133 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)
    …PER CURIAM. The state’s motion for certification and motion to stay mandate is granted. As we did in West v. State, 758 So. 2d 1230 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), and Brooks v. State, 764 So. 2d 648 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), we certify conflict with our sister courts in Alfonso v. State, 761 So. 2d 1231 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000); Smith v. State, 754 So. 2d 100 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000); and Grant v. State,…
  • Harley Roy Walker v. State, 765 So. 2d 939 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)
    …tencing under only the prison releas-ee reoffender act. See Glave v. State, 745 So. 2d 1065 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999); Adams v. State, 750 So. 2d 659 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999). As we did in Valentino v. State, 765 So. 2d 133 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), West v. State, 758 So. 2d 1230 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), and Brooks v. State, 764 So. 2d 648 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), we certify conflict with our sister courts in Alfonso v. State, 761 So. 2d [*940] 1231 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), rev. dismissed by, No. SC00-1249, 767 So. 2d 453 (Fla. Jun.21, 2…
  • Kenney Willis v. State, 769 So. 2d 1072 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)
    …dez v. State, 761 So. 2d 438 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000); see also Adams v. State, 750 So. 2d 659 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999); Glave v. State, 745 So. 2d 1065 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999). As we did in Valentino v. State, 765 So. 2d 133 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), West v. State, 758 So. 2d 1230 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), and Brooks v. State, 764 So. 2d 648 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), we certify conflict with our sister courts in Alfonso v. State, 761 So. 2d 1231 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000), Smith v. State, 754 So. 2d 100 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000), and Grant v. State,…

Previewing 3 of 5 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw