Spear v. State

• Decision Date: 29 July 2022
• Docket Number: Case No. 5D19-1747
• Citation: 343 So.3d 656
• Parties: Michael D. SPEAR, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

343 So.3d 656

Michael D. SPEAR, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Case No. 5D19-1747

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.

Opinion filed July 29, 2022

Matthew J. Metz, Public Defender, and Glendon George Gordon, Jr., Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Kaylee D. Tatman, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.

ON REMAND FROM THE FLORIDA SUPREME COURT

PER CURIAM.

In Spear v. State , 341 So.3d 1106 (Fla. June 16, 2022), the Florida Supreme Court quashed this court's decision in Spear v. State , 294 So. 3d 995 (Fla. 5th DCA 2020). Our court had affirmed amended judgments and sentences entered by the trial court sua sponte in two cases below that reduced an erroneously excessive amount of jail credit and prison credit that had been awarded to Michael D. Spear at his resentencing. The supreme court determined that since the trial court's corrections occurred after Spear's direct appeal of his judgments and sentences was over, the corrections were untimely under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(b). Id. The court remanded the matter for proceedings consistent with its opinion. Id.

Accordingly, we withdraw our previously issued mandate. We reverse the trial court's amended judgments and sentences that had corrected the overreporting of Spear's jail credit and prison credit. The case is remanded for the trial court to reinstate its original judgments and sentences imposed following resentencing to show that in circuit court case number 05-2016-CF-039801, Spear has 686 days of credit on each felony count and that in circuit court case number 05-2016-CF-047845, Spear has 932 days of credit on the sole felony count in that case. Spear does not need to be present when the trial court makes these ministerial changes.

REVERSED and REMANDED, with directions.

COHEN and EISNAUGLE, JJ., concur.

LAMBERT, C.J., concurs specially with opinion, in which COHEN, J., concurs.

LAMBERT, C.J., concurring specially.

I concur with the majority opinion as it is consistent with the remand requirements from our supreme court. I write separately to encourage trial courts, in light of the relatively limited time frame discussed in the court's opinion to correct sentencing errors such as those that occurred here, to be especially diligent regarding their jail credit calculations and their sentencing paperwork.

The supreme court emphasized in its opinion that the sentencing errors that occurred in this case were "avoidable." Spear , 341 So.3d at 1107–08. The overreporting of jail credit and prison credit occurred in the two cases below when, at the conclusion of the resentencing hearing, the deputy clerk erred when adding Spear's accumulated prison credit to his jail credit. Id. This error was avoidable because it was unnecessary for the deputy clerk, on behalf of the trial court, to compute Spear's prison credit in each case. As the supreme court observed in its opinion, the "standard practice" when calculating prison credit is for the trial court to defer prison credit calculations to the Department of Corrections. Id. ; see also Bryant v. State , 240 So. 3d 55, 57 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018) (explaining that once the trial court determined that a defendant is entitled to prison credit upon resentencing, the Department of Corrections has the primary responsibility for calculating this credit, and it is permissible for the trial court to confirm the defendant's entitlement to prison credit and to delegate the task of calculating the amount of credit to the Department).

The court also noted that the sentencing documents did not distinguish between jail credit and prison credit; instead, the entire amount of credit was described as "original jail credit." Spear , 341 So.3d at 1107–08. Had the jail credit and prison credit been separately designated and the prison credit calculation been left to the Department of Corrections, the error here would have been avoided.

The supreme court also made clear in its opinion that sentences in which jail credit or prison credit is overreported are not to be considered or treated as an illegal sentence, correctable at any time under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a). Id.

Instead, the court determined that the error here was a sentencing error and held that while a trial court does have the authority to sua sponte correct such sentencing errors, its authority is "subject to the procedural constraints established by Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(b)." Id.

Accordingly, because rule 3.800(b) sets forth certain procedures and specific time frames for correction of sentencing errors, the onus is on trial courts, as well as the parties and their counse...