ERNESTO COMPANION, APPELLANT,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 3d DCA | 2007-11-28
No. 3D06-2704
Before COPE, RAMIREZ and SALTER, JJ.
971 So. 2d 883 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (2007) Positive Treatment
Cited by 1 case

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

Ernesto Companioni appealed the trial court's denial of his motion to correct an illegal sentence, arguing that the sentencing court improperly assessed 80 points for victim injury on his guidelines scoresheet. The Third District Court of Appeal agreed, finding the victim injury points were erroneously scored under guidelines effective before the relevant rule amendment, and reversed and remanded for resentencing with the corrected scoresheet.


Holding

The court held that Companioni was entitled to relief because victim injury points were improperly assessed for attempted sexual battery under the guidelines effective at the time of his crimes. Removing the 80 erroneous points reduced his guidelines score from 623 to 543 points, lowering his recommended sentence from life imprisonment to a range of 22 to 27 years (or up to 40 years with probation revocation adjustment).


Headnotes

[1] A court may correct an illegal sentence or an incorrect calculation on a sentencing scoresheet at any time.

[2] It is error to score victim injury points for attempted sexual battery under guidelines in effect prior to July 1, 1987, if victim injury is not an element of the crime.

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Key Quotes

“The State properly concedes that it was error to assess eighty points for victim injury on the guideline scoresheet.”

Establishes the central factual error that gives rise to relief.

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Facts & Procedural History

Companioni was charged with two counts of sexual battery and three counts of lewd or lascivious assault against a child committed between March 12 and…

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Opinion of the Court
RAMIREZ, J.

RAMIREZ, J.

Ernesto Companioni appeals from a motion to correct illegal sentence filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) and summarily denied by the trial court. Companioni was charged by information dated August 3, 1987, with two counts of sexual battery and three counts of lewd or lascivious assault for acts committed between March 12 and June 2, 1987, against a child under the age of sixteen. The defendant accepted a negotiated plea on September 6, 1988, to a reduced charge of two counts of attempted sexual battery and three counts of lewd assault upon a minor. Because Companioni was assessed eighty points for victim injury on the guideline scoresheet, the parties believed that he qualified for a sentence of life imprisonment under the guidelines for the crimes of attempted sexual battery charged in Counts I and II of the Information. The State properly concedes that it was error to assess eighty points for victim injury on the guideline scoresheet.

The trial court denied this claim in a prior motion to correct illegal sentence under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a), a motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850, and the Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) motion to correct illegal sentence currently under review. None of these denials by the trial court included an opinion addressing the merits of this claim.

We agree with the State’s concession that the record reflects Companioni is entitled to relief. The postconviction record indicates that he was improperly assessed eighty points for victim injury on the guideline scoresheet. Here, his crimes were committed between March 12 and June 2,1987. These dates are prior to the amendment to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.701(d)(7), adopted by the Florida Supreme Court, effective July 1, 1987, which allowed for the scoring of victim injury points regardless of whether the injury was an element of the crime. Under the prior guidelines in effect, it was error to score victim injury points for the crime of attempted sexual battery because victim injury was not an element of that crime. Simmons v. State, 506 So. 2d 101, 102 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987).

When the erroneously counted victim injury points are excluded, Companioni’s guidelines score drops from 623 to 543 points. This then would change his recommended sentence, from a recommended sentence of life in prison to a recommended range of twenty-two to twenty-seven years. The guidelines allow a one-cell increase, to twenty-seven to forty years, for the revocation of probation. See Fla. R.Crim. P. 3.701(d)(14).

According to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a), “A court may at any time correct an illegal sentence imposed by it, or an incorrect calculation made by it in a sentencing scoresheet,_” As such, Com-panioni has stated a claim that is meritorious from the face of the record.

Because we are reversing, the State suggests that the proper solution here, in accord with Jolly v. State, 392 So. 2d 54 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981), is to remand the case so that the trial court can give the State the option of retrying Companioni on the original charges or electing to have only the excessive portion of the sentence imposed vacated.

Accordingly, this case is reversed and remanded to the trial court for correction of Companioni’s scoresheet to reflect eighty fewer points, for a total of 543 points. We further instruct the trial court to give the State the option of allowing Companioni to move to vacate the judgment and sentence (under a properly filed Rule 3.850 motion) and reinstate the original charges, or vacating only that portion of the sentence imposed which is excessive in light of the corrected guidelines score-sheet.

Reversed and remanded with instructions.


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Citator

Cited By

  • McCALISTER v. State, 997 So. 2d 1170 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008)
    …ter to show cause why he should not be barred from further pro se filings. Upon consideration of his response to the order, and because his argument in the present postconviction motion relies on a recent decision of this Court, Companioni v. State, 971 So. 2d 883 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007), we will not impose or recommend sanctions at this time. This ruling, however, is without prejudice to the Court’s consideration of sanctions if a further postconviction motion is filed in this case that is successive and frivolou…

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