Brannon v. State

• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: PARIENTE, J.
• Citation: Brannon v. State, 850 So.2d 452, 2003 WL 21354797 (Fla. 2003)
• Decision Date: 12 June 2003
• Docket Number: No. SC01-1538.,SC01-1538.
• Parties: Johnny E. BRANNON, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.

850 So.2d 452

Johnny E. BRANNON, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.

No. SC01-1538.

Supreme Court of Florida.

June 12, 2003.

Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and Kathleen Stover, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, Florida, for Petitioner.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, James W. Rogers, Tallahassee Bureau Chief, Criminal Appeals, and Trisha E. Meggs, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, for Respondent.

PARIENTE, J.

We have for review Brannon v. State, 791 So.2d 1154 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001), in which the district court certified the following two questions of great public importance:

Whether the concept of fundamental sentencing error, as discussed in Maddox v. State, 760 So.2d 89 (Fla.2000), applies to defendants who could have availed themselves of the procedural mechanism of the most recent amendments to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(b) set forth in Amendments to Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.111(e) and 3.800 and Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure 9.020(h), 9.140, and 9.600, 761 So.2d 1015 (Fla.1999)?

Where the district court previously ruled that a sentencing issue is fundamental error, the initial brief was filed after the effective date of rule 3.800(b)(2), Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, but before the Florida Supreme Court decided Maddox v. State, does Maddox preclude the district court from ruling on the issue as a matter of fundamental error?

Id. at 1156. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. For the reasons that follow, we answer the first certified question in the negative, with the exception of fundamental error arising from the facial unconstitutionality of a sentencing statute, as further explained herein; answer the second certified question in the affirmative; and approve the decision below.

Brannon was sentenced as a habitual offender for possession of cocaine with intent to sell and for violation of probation on another offense. The legality of his sentences was not tested in the trial court, either by objection when the sentences were imposed or by subsequent motion under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(b).¹ Brannon took a direct appeal and filed an initial brief after the effective date of the enactment of Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(b)(2) but before our decision in Maddox v. State, 760 So.2d 89 (Fla.2000). In his brief, Brannon asserted that the trial court erred in imposing the habitual offender sanctions. The district court declined to address the sentencing issues because they were unpreserved. See Brannon, 791 So.2d at 1155. The court denied Brannon's motion for rehearing, but certified the questions of great public importance. See id. at 1155-56.

The essential issue in this case is the status of fundamental sentencing error following our adoption of rule 3.800(b)(2), which authorizes a party in a criminal appeal to raise a sentencing error in the trial court in a motion filed before the party's first brief in the appeal, and our decision in Maddox, in which we defined a window period for presenting unpreserved, fundamental sentencing errors on appeal. The impetus for the adoption of both rule 3.800(b)(1), which authorizes motions to correct sentencing error before an appeal, and 3.800(b)(2), which authorizes such motions during an appeal, was the enactment of the Criminal Appeals Reform Act of 1996 (hereinafter CARA). In Maddox, we recognized that the goal of CARA was "to ensure that all claims of error [were] raised and resolved at the first opportunity." 760 So.2d at 95 (quoting § 924.051(8), Fla. Stat. (Supp.1996)). In adopting rule 3.800(b)(2), we stated our expectation that "these amendments will provide an effective, and hopefully more `failsafe,' procedural mechanism through which defendants may present their sentencing errors to the trial court and thereby preserve them for appellate review." Amendments to Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.111(e) & 3.800 & Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure 9.020(h), 9.140, & 9.600, 761 So.2d 1015, 1017-18 (Fla.2000) (hereinafter Amendments II ).² We explained:

The most important change in the new rule is that it significantly expands the period in which a motion to correct a sentencing error can be filed in the trial court. As with the current rule, rule 3.800(b)(1) will allow a motion to correct a sentencing error to be filed in the trial court during the time allowed for the filing of a notice of appeal. However, under the new rule 3.800(b)(2), if a notice of appeal has been filed, a motion to correct a sentencing error can also be filed in the trial court at any time until the first appellate brief is filed. The deadline for filing the first appellate brief is then extended until ten days after the clerk of the circuit court transmits the supplemental record from the proceedings held on the motion to correct the sentencing error, which includes the motion, the order, any amended sentence, and the transcript if designated.

Thus, an advantage of this amendment is that it will give appellate counsel, with expertise in detecting sentencing errors, the opportunity to identify any sentencing errors and a method to correct these errors and preserve them for appeal. Unless the motion to correct the sentencing error states that appellate counsel will represent the movant in the trial court, trial counsel will represent the defendant. If the State files the motion, trial counsel will represent the defendant.

Another advantage of the rule is that it requires the movant to specifically identify the alleged sentencing error and propose how the trial court should correct the error. The rule further requires a response within fifteen days either admitting or denying the sentencing error. In many cases, we anticipate that clear errors will be corrected by agreement of the parties, thus eliminating the necessity for resolution by the appellate court and minimizing the involvement of the trial court. In appeals involving only the issue of a sentencing error, this resolution would allow for dismissal of the appeal after the error has been corrected.

For those sentencing errors that cannot be resolved by the good-faith cooperation of the parties, subdivision 3.800(b)(1)(B) provides the time limits for the trial court to dispose of the motion so as to minimize any delays in the appellate process. Unless the trial court determines that the motion can be resolved as a matter of law, the trial court must hold a calendar call within twenty days after the motion is filed to either rule on the motion or determine the need for an evidentiary hearing. If an evidentiary hearing is needed, it shall be set within twenty days of the calendar call. However, the trial court must rule on the motion within sixty days of filing or it is deemed denied. The comments to the proposed rule state that "trial courts and counsel are strongly encouraged to cooperate to resolve these motions as expeditiously as possible because they delay the appellate process." Trial courts thus have the opportunity to address and correct sentencing errors, which might eliminate the need for an appeal in many cases and also reduce the number of postconviction motions related to sentencing and appeals therefrom.

Any delay to the appellate process caused by these amendments will be more than offset by the fact that the parties will now be given a workable procedure to correct these sentencing errors in the trial court before the appeal and to preserve these errors for appellate review. This early correction of these sentencing errors will further the goal of judicial efficiency as well as ensure the integrity of the judicial process.

Id. at 1018-19 (emphasis supplied). Lastly, we stated that the amendments "shall become effective immediately and shall also apply to cases pending on appeal." Id. at 1020.

In Maddox, which was issued after Amendments II, we made clear that the window period for raising unpreserved, fundamental sentencing errors on appeal was intended to apply only to those defendants who were unable to take advantage of rule 3.800(b)(2):

We anticipate that the amendments to rule 3.800(b) recently promulgated by this Court in [Amendments II] should eliminate the problem of unpreserved sentencing errors raised on direct appeal because the time in which a defendant can file a motion to correct a sentencing error in the trial court is expanded to the time the first appellate brief is filed. However, we must still address the conflict issue for those noncapital defendants whose appeals fall into the window period between the effective date of [CARA] and the effective date of our recent amendment to rule 3.800 in Amendments II.

760 So.2d at 94 (footnote omitted) (emphasis supplied). We determined that the window for raising unpreserved, fundamental sentencing errors closed with the issuance of the opinion in Amendments II. See id. at 110.

In this case, Brannon did not avail himself of the opportunity under rule 3.800(b)(2) to raise the unpreserved sentencing errors in the trial court before presenting them in his direct appeal. He filed the initial brief in the appeal from his judgment and sentence on February 10, 2001, more than a year after the window for raising unpreserved sentencing errors on appeal closed on November 12, 1999, with the adoption of rule 3.800(b)(2). See Amendments II, 761 So.2d at 1020 ("[T]he amendments ... shall become effective immediately and shall also apply to cases pending on appeal."); Maddox, 760 So.2d at 110 (defining the window period for raising serious, unpreserved, fundamental sentencing errors on appeal as "between the enactment of the Criminal Appeal Reform Act and this Court's recent opinion in Amendments II"). Thus, the intent of our adoption of rule 3.800(b)(2) and the effect of Maddox is to preclude litigants such as Brannon from raising these claims of sentencing error for the first time on appeal. Acco...