JOHNATHAN LEE CRAWFORD
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA

Fla. 5th DCA | 2020-02-28
No. 19-3058
Maloney, J., Sasso, J., Cohen, J., Traver, J.
Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (2020)

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.

Holding

A trial court must provide a defendant the opportunity to amend an unsworn Rule 3.801 motion for jail credit rather than summarily denying it, and must address a Rule 3.800(a) motion for prison credit on the merits.

Headnotes

[1] A trial court must provide a defendant an opportunity to amend an unsworn motion for jail credit under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.801 rather than summarily deny…

[2] A trial court must address a defendant's motion for prison credit filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) on the merits and cannot summarily deny it witho…

Previewing 2 of 2 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

“Under Rule 3.801, a defendant does not have to affirmatively allege that the court records demonstrate on their face an entitlement to relief, nor does a defendant have to attach any documentation to support his or her claim.”

Court citing Adkins v. State regarding the requirements for jail credit motions under Rule 3.801.
Facts & Procedural History

Crawford filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence seeking additional jail and prison credit. The postconviction court summarily denied the motion…

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
Traver

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FIFTH DISTRICT

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO

FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND

DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

JOHNATHAN LEE CRAWFORD,

Appellant,

v. Case No. 5D19-3058

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

________________________________/

Opinion filed February 28, 2020

3.800 Appeal from the Circuit Court for Brevard County, Nancy Maloney, Judge.

Johnathan Crawford, Lake City, pro se.

No Appearance for Appellee.

SASSO, J.

Johnathan Lee Crawford challenges the summary denial of his “Motion to Correct Illegal Sentence,” filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800, in which he seeks additional jail and prison credit. For the reasons that follow, we reverse.

1 A request for prison credit is governed by rule 3.800(a), whereas a request for jail credit is governed by rule 3.801. See Monroe v. State, 270 So. 3d 513, 514 n.1 (Fla. 2d DCA 2019).

Footnotes
2 First, although the postconviction court properly treated Crawford’s request for additional jail credit as one pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.801,1 the court erred in denying relief for the stated reason that the attachments to Crawford’s motion did not establish entitlement to jail credit for the time period at issue. See Adkins v. State, 183 So. 3d 1102, 1104 (Fla. 5th DCA 2015) (“Under Rule 3.801, a defendant does not have to affirmatively allege that the court records demonstrate on their face an entitlement to relief, nor does a defendant have to attach any documentation to support his or her claim . . . .”). Rule 3.801 incorporates Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(f), which states that if a defendant files a legally sufficient motion, the trial court should grant the additional credit or conduct an evidentiary hearing, unless the motion can be conclusively refuted either as a matter of law or by reliance upon the records in the case. See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.850(f)(5). However, because Crawford’s motion was unsworn, in contravention of rule 3.801(c), his motion was legally insufficient such that he should have been provided the opportunity to amend. See Fla. R. Crim P. 3.850(f)(2). Accordingly, we reverse the order summarily denying Crawford’s request for jail credit and remand with directions that the postconviction court provide him sixty days to amend his motion, if he can do so in good faith. See, e.g., Smith v. State, 268 So. 3d 241 (Fla. 5th DCA 2019). Second, Crawford’s request for additional prison credit was properly filed pursuant to rule 3.800(a). Monroe, 270 So. 3d at 514 n.1. Even so, the postconviction court did not address this request. Because the record does not conclusively demonstrate that
3 Crawford is entitled to no relief as to his request for prison credit, we reverse. See Fla. R. App. P. 9.141(b)(2)(A) and (D). Upon remand, the court should address Crawford’s claim for prison credit. REVERSED and REMANDED. COHEN and TRAVER, JJ., concur.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw