WESTON GRAY, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 2d DCA | 2016-03-04
No. 2D13-1179
• KELLY and SALARIO, JJ., concur.
198 So. 3d 780 Florida District Court of Appeal, Second District (2016) Positive Treatment
Cited by 2 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

Weston Gray appealed his conviction and sentence for attempted aggravated assault and battery, but the appellate court found that the trial court had not properly rendered a final judgment and sentence. The court relinquished jurisdiction to the trial court to enter proper judgments and to rule on Gray's pending motions to withdraw his plea.


Holding

A 'memo of sentence' does not qualify as a rendered judgment and sentence under Florida law. The actual judgment and sentence were rendered when the properly signed, written judgments were filed on April 18, 2013. Because Gray's second and third motions to withdraw plea were filed on April 15 and 16, they were timely and had not yet been disposed of, preventing the appeal from proceeding.


Headnotes

[1] A "memo of sentence" or "snapout" that lacks fingerprints and a judge's signature does not qualify as a rendered sentence for purposes of appeal.

[2] A trial court's written judgments and sentences are not deemed rendered until filed with the clerk of court.

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Key Quotes

“We reject the State's argument that the "memo of sentence" serves as a judgment and sentence in this case. Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.986(a) states that a circuit court "shall" use a judgment and sentence in conformity with the form provided in that rule. The "memo of sentence" is not in conformity with this rule in numerous respects.”

Establishes that the memo of sentence does not satisfy the statutory and procedural requirements for a valid judgment and sentence.

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Facts & Procedural History

Gray was arrested in November 2011 for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery. In April 2012, he pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated a…

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

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Opinion of the Court
ALTENBERND, Judge.

ORDER RELINQUISHING JURISDICTION TO THE TRIAL COURT TO RESOLVE MOTIONS UNDER FLA. R. CRIM. P. 3.170(0

ALTENBERND, Judge.

Weston Gray appeals his judgments and sentences for attempted aggravated assault and battery. Unfortunately, we conclude that his judgments and sentences have yet to be rendered. Accordingly, we relinquish jurisdiction to permit the trial court to take the steps necessary to render these orders. The State argues that this appeal is untimely. We write to reject this argument because we conclude that a “memo of sentence” in the Tenth Judicial Circuit does not qualify as a rendered sentence that can be attached to a commitment or appealed to this court.

Mr. Gray was arrested in November 2011 for offenses including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery. The State filed an information against Mr. Gray for these charges. In April 2012, Mr. Gray negotiated a plea on the day his case was set for trial. He agreed to be sentenced as a habitual offender to the lesser-included offense of attempted aggravated assault and to misdemeanor battery in exchange for a sentence of eighteen months’ imprisonment.1 The trial court accepted the plea and agreed to delay sentencing until mid-May under a proper Quarterman 2 agreement.

Mr. Gray failed to appear for sentencing in May and on two occasions thereafter. Apparently, he was arrested on' new charges and then brought to court for sentencing in this case in March 2013. At the sentencing hearing, he did not provide an adequate explanation for his failure to appear. The trial court sentenced him to five years in prison for the attempted aggravated battery and to one year in prison for the misdemeanor.

On March 5, 2013, a “memo of sentence” or “snapout” was filed that describes this sentence. See Phillips v. State, case number 2D15-1698, 2-3 & n. 2 (Fla. 2d DCA Mar. 4, 2016). This document contains no fingerprints and does not appear to have been signed by the trial judge. A “Monetary Obligation Order” or cost judgment *782was also filed. It was not signed by the trial -judge, but it did contain a rubber-stamped facsimile signature with a representation' that it was authorized by section 116.34, Florida Statutes.3

On March 13, 2013, Mr. Gray filed a very short motion 'to withdraw his plea agreement. On April 15, he filed a motion to mitigate and reduce his sentence; he also filed a second, more detailed motion to withdraw his plea. On April 16, he filed a third motion to withdraw his plea with similar allegations as those in the second motion to withdraw. Finally, on April 23, he filed' a motion for a court-appointed attorney, claiming that his earlier attorney had withdrawn from the case.

In the midst of these filings, the trial court filed proper judgments and , sentences on April 18. The judgments and sentences had been signed by the trial judge on March 4, but they were not served or recorded until April 18.

On April 29, the trial court filed photocopies of each of these motions with the exception of the .second and third motions to withdraw plea. On each of these copies, the judge rubber stamped the phrase “motion considered and_The judge then hand wrote the word “denied” on the blank line along with the date, April 26, 2013, and his signature.4

Mr. Gray had filed a pro se notice of appeal--to this court on March 14. He did not pay the filing fee or file an order of indigency, and this appeal was initially dismissed. After we received an order of indigency, this court reinstated the appeal, and ultimately Mr. Gray’s attorney and the State filed their respective briefs.

Mr. Gray’s attorney filed a brief arguing that the trial court should not have denied Mr. Gray’s motions to withdraw plea. The State responded with a •brief making several arguments. We focus on one of its arguments: that Mr. Gray’s second and third motions to withdraw plea were untimely because Mr. Gray’s sentences “were ‘rendered’ when the trial court filed its written and signed ‘Memo of Sentence/Order of the Court’ memorializing those sentences.” As we explain, this argument is incorrect. Because the actual written sentences were rendered on April 18, when they were-filed with the clerk of court, the second and third motions to withdraw plea, filed on April 15 and 16, were timely and have never been-ruled upon. Pursuant to Florida Rule of'Appellate Procedure 9.020(i), the judgments and sentences are not “deemed rendered” because the motions to withdraw plea have not been disposed of by a signed, written order. Although we could dismiss this appeal, we elect to relinquish jurisdiction to the trial court to give “the parties additional -time to obtain a final order from the lower tribunal.” See Fla. R.App. P. 9.110(Z).

We reject the State’s argument that the “memo of sentence” serves as a judgment and sentence in this case. Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.986(a) states that a circuit court “shall” use a judgment and sentence in conformity with the form provided in that rule. The “memo of sentence” is not in conformity *783with this rule in numerous respects. Perhaps the most important omission is the absence of any place on the form to attach the defendant's fingerprints and to certify that the fingerprints are those of the defendant. In the case of a felony conviction, the fingerprints are required not only by the form but also by statute, See § 921.241, Fla. Stat. (2011). These omissions on the “memo of sentence” are not mere “variations from these forms” that “do not void” a judgment under rule 3.986. This form simply does not constitute a judgment or a sentence even if the form is signed by a judge, which this one apparently was not. This form not only fails to serve as a rendered judgment and sentence for purposes of appeal, but it lacks the information sufficient to authorize the Department of Corrections or a sheriff to detain a person-'as a convicted defendant because it lacks any evidence of the identity of the defendant named in the docu.ment.

Accordingly, we are without authority to proceed with this appeal. This case is relinquished to the trial court, for a period of thirty days from the date of this opinion, to enter an order disposing of the pending motions to withdraw plea. We note that the motions are regarded as a critical stage of the proceeding and that Mr. Gray is thus entitled to conflict-free counsel. See Krautheim v. State, 38 So.3d 802, 804-05 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010); see also Padgett v. State, 743 So.2d 70, 73 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999).

Jurisdiction relinquished for thirty days.

• KELLY and SALARIO, JJ., concur.


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Citator

Cited By

  • Pittman v. State, 44 Fla. L. Weekly D974 (Fla. 2d DCA 2020)
    …myriad ways in which snap-outs have been used inappropriately). More importantly, we have explicitly held that a "snap out" memorandum of sentence form "does not qualify as a rendered sentence that can be attached to a commitment." Gray v. State, 198 So. 3d 780, 781 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016). Simply put, the Department of Corrections has no obligation to regard a local snap-out form as a proper sentencing document in lieu of the standard, statewide judgment and sentence form. Id. at 782-83 (noting that Florida…
  • Dagan v. State (Fla. 2d DCA 2019)
    …ing this practice and pointing out specific problems with the circuit’s widespread use of the forms. See Hendrix v. State, 224 So. 3d 823, 824 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017) (holding that a snapout cannot serve as a written competency order); Gray v. State, 198 So. 3d 780, 782–83 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016) (holding that a snapout cannot serve as a written judgment or sentence); Phillips v. State, 198 So. 3d 789, 790 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016), Zaborowski v. State, 126 So. 3d 405, 407 n.2 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013), Thar v. State, 8 So. 3…

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