PASCAL LARRIEUX, APPELLANT,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 2014-05-28

Nos. 4D12-2771, 4D12-2772

WARNER, GROSS and CONNER, JJ„ concur.

138 So. 3d 1221 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2014) Positive Treatment

Cited by 6 cases

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Holding

The court held that the trial court erred by denying the defendant an opportunity to be heard before sentencing.

Facts & Procedural History

The defendant was found in violation of probation and immediately sentenced to the maximum penalty without being given an opportunity to present evide…

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

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Opportunity To Be Heard Mitigating Evidence

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Opinion of the Court

PER CURIAM.

These two cases have been consolidated for purposes of appeal. Larrieux appeals his sentence of forty years in prison after the trial court found him in violation of his probation.1 Larrieux contends that the trial court erred by denying him the opportunity to be heard before sentencing. We agree. We reverse the sentence and remand the case back to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing.

Prior to the commencement of the violation of probation hearing, Larrieux requested that, if the court should find him in violation of his probation, the trial court continue the sentencing portion of the hearing. Larrieux stated that he was not prepared to proceed to a sentencing hearing, and he wanted “the court to hear absolutely everything” before pronouncing a sentence. Immediately after the trial court found Larrieux in violation of his probation, it sentenced Larrieux to forty years in prison, the maximum penalty he faced based on the charges for which he was on probation, without giving Larrieux or his counsel an opportunity to present any evidence or argument in mitigation prior to imposing the sentences2.

Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.720(b) states that, at a sentencing hear*1222ing, “[t]he court shall entertain submissions and evidence by the parties that are relevant to the sentence.” Because we find that the trial court departed from the essential requirements set forth in rule 3.720(b), we reverse the sentence and remand the case for a new sentencing hearing.

Reversed and remanded.

WARNER, GROSS and CONNER, JJ„ concur.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Citator

Cited By

Guichard Jean-Baptiste v. State, 155 So. 3d 1237 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015)

…the essential requirements set forth in rule 3.720(b)” where it sentenced the defendant without giving the defendant or his counsel an opportunity to present any evidence or argument in mitigation prior to imposing the sentences. Larrieux v. State, 138 So. 3d 1221, 1221 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014). The Fifth District also reversed a sentence where the record revealed that the defendant never had the opportunity to offer evidence or make a statement to the court. Witt v. State, 983 So. 2d 708 (Fla. 5th DCA 2008). Non…
Hill v. State, 246 So. 3d 392 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018)
Montoya v. State (Fla. 4th DCA 2023)

…argument in mitigation prior to imposing sentence. The State agrees and so do we. We therefore reverse and remand the case to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing before a different judge. See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.720(b); Larrieux v. State, 138 So. 3d 1221, 1221 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014); Schwartzberg v. State, 215 So. 3d 611, 616 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017). Reversed and Remanded. DAMOORGIAN and FORST, JJ., concur.…

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