Summary
finding that such concurrent sentences do not violate double jeopardy
Summary of this case from Grant v. StateOpinion
No. 1D98-656.
Opinion filed March 13, 2000.
An appeal from the Circuit Court for Bay County, Don Sirmons, Judge.
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender; Carl S. McGinnes, Assistant Public Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General; Charmaine M. Millsaps, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
Appellant appeals his conviction and sentence for robbery. We affirm and certify conflict.
Appellant robbed a bank one day after being released from prison in 1997. He qualified as both a Prison Releasee Reoffender ("PRR") and as an Habitual Felony Offender ("HFO"). The trial court imposed a 30-year HFO sentence with a 15-year minimum mandatory under the PRR Act. The court found that the PRR Act permitted a trial court to sentence a defendant as both a PRR and HFO for one offense.
In the PRR Act, the Legislature wrote, "Nothing in this subsection shall prevent a court from imposing a greater sentence of incarceration as authorized by law, pursuant to § 775.084 or any other provision of law." Sec. 775.082(8)(c), Fla. Stat. (1997). We find that this subsection allows a trial court to impose an HFO sentence on a PRR when the defendant qualifies under both statutes. It does not require a trial court to choose between one or the other. When a defendant receives a sentence like the one in this case, the PRR Act operates as a mandatory minimum sentence. It does not create two separate sentences for one crime.
The PRR Act is now codified at section 775.082(9), Florida Statutes (1999).
Because we find that a 30-year HFO sentence with a 15-year minimum mandatory under the PRR Act does not violate Double Jeopardy, we certify conflict with the decision in Adams v. State, 24 Fla. L. Weekly D2394 (Fla. 4th DCA Oct. 20, 1999). We also certify the same question that we certified in Woods v. State, 740 So.2d 20 (Fla. 1st DCA), review granted, No. 95,281, 740 So.2d 529 (Fla. Aug. 23, 1999), regarding the constitutionality of the PRR Act.
The sentence imposed in Adams was identical to the one imposed in this case. We do not certify conflict with Lewis v. State, 25 Fla. L. Weekly D144 (Fla. 5th DCA Dec. 30, 1999), because of the different sentencing scheme imposed in that case.
AFFIRMED; conflict certified; question certified.
JOANOS, MINER and DAVIS, JJ., CONCUR.