Harris v. State

Decision Date23 July 1993
Docket NumberNo. 92-02760,92-02760
Citation624 So.2d 279
CourtFlorida District Court of Appeals
Parties18 Fla. L. Weekly D1659 Willie HARRIS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Andrea Norgard, Asst. Public Defender, Bartow, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and William I. Munsey, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.

FRANK, Chief Judge.

Willie Harris has appealed from the trial court's imposition of a habitual offender sentence after remand from an unsuccessful appeal to this court, claiming that his new sentence is harsher and violates the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. We reject his argument and affirm.

Harris was convicted of robbery while armed with a firearm and resisting an officer without violence. At his sentencing, the state requested habitual offender sanctions. The trial court did not impose them but only because the trial court agreed with Harris that a first degree felony punishable by life was not subject to habitualization. Accordingly, Harris was given a guidelines sentence of 27 years. He appealed the convictions and sentence, and the state cross appealed the question of whether habitualization was properly refused. This court affirmed the convictions, held that first degree felonies punishable by life were subject to habitualization, and reversed and remanded for resentencing. Harris v. State, 593 So.2d 301 (Fla.2d DCA 1992). At the hearing on remand Harris argued that once he had begun to serve a legal sentence, resentencing him to a more severe sanction offends North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969). The trial court rejected the argument and, in accordance with our mandate, sentenced him as a habitual offender to the same 27 year term of imprisonment. We acknowledge, but only in passing and not as an issue in this proceeding, that the loss of gain time flowing from habitualization results in Harris' serving a period of actual incarceration greater than that of the original sentence of the same term. Under his original, non-habitual offender sentence he would have been eligible to acquire gain time.

In any event, it is apparent that the trial court would have originally sentenced Harris as a habitual offender but for the uncertainty in the then state of the law regarding the habitualization of first degree felonies punishable by life. Harris, in...

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6 cases
  • Stauderman v. State
    • United States
    • Florida District Court of Appeals
    • October 12, 2018
    ...is well established that a harsher sentence may be imposed on resentencing ... without violating double jeopardy"; Harris v. State, 624 So.2d 279, 280 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993) (holding that the circuit court did not violate double jeopardy by imposing a habitual offender sentence on resentencing ......
  • Harris v. State
    • United States
    • Florida Supreme Court
    • September 29, 1994
    ...I. Munsey, Jr., Tampa, and Thomas Crapps, Tallahassee, Asst. Attys. Gen., for respondent. OVERTON, Justice. We review Harris v. State, 624 So.2d 279 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993), in which the district court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar the imposition of a habitual offender sentenc......
  • Smith v. State
    • United States
    • Florida District Court of Appeals
    • February 24, 2017
  • Mason v. State, 93-00894
    • United States
    • Florida District Court of Appeals
    • November 18, 1994
    ...Mason as a habitual violent felony offender, as the judge originally contemplated at the sentencing hearing. See Harris v. State, 624 So.2d 279, 280 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993) ("When he chose to appeal from his convictions and sentences, however, Harris risked having the trial court's misperception......
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