State v. Williams
| Decision Date | 14 February 1991 |
| Docket Number | 76010,Nos. 75880,s. 75880 |
| Citation | 16 Fla. L. Weekly 174,576 So.2d 281 |
| Parties | 16 Fla. L. Weekly 174 STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Anthony Lee WILLIAMS, Respondent. Anthony Lee WILLIAMS, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Bradley R. Bischoff, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for petitioner/respondent.
Nancy Daniels, Public Defender and Carl S. McGinnes, Asst. Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, for respondent/petitioner.
Pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(4) of the Florida Constitution, we review Williams v. State, 559 So.2d 372 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990), in which the court certified as a matter of great public importance the following question:
Whether a sentence must be reversed and remanded for resentencing pursuant to the options provided in Ree v. State, 14 F.L.W. 565 (Fla. Nov. 16, 1989), when there is no significant difference between the reasons for departure from the guidelines which were orally pronounced at the imposition of sentence and the written reasons which were entered the same day or within a few days of the imposition of sentence?
Williams was convicted of aggravated assault and resisting an officer without violence. He received a sentence that was above the range of the sentencing guidelines. At sentencing, the trial court announced as reasons for departure that the offense had occurred within five days of Williams' release from incarceration and that the facts indicated a continuing and persistent pattern of criminal conduct. A written statement that contained the same reasons as those that were orally announced was signed the same day as the sentencing but was filed two days later. The district court of appeal held that these reasons were a valid basis for departure. However, the court remanded for resentencing because the court's written statement of reasons for departure was not provided at the time of sentencing. In explaining why it chose to certify the question, the court said:
In situations such as this case presents, where there is no significant difference between the reasons for departure orally pronounced at the imposition of sentence and the written reasons entered the same day or within a few days of the sentencing hearing, we can find no prejudice to the defendant, or any logical reason for remand so that the trial court may reimpose the same sentence using the same written reasons. We would be inclined to find no error in this case, or at worst, harmless error. But like our sister court in Holmes v. State, 556 So.2d 1224 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990), we acknowledge that until the supreme court alters its position, we are bound by Ree.
The quoted reference to Holmes v. State, 556 So.2d 1224 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990), is not without significance. In Holmes, the Fourth District Court of Appeal wrote:
We already "reluctantly" held in Ree v. State, 512 So.2d 1085 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987), that the oral pronouncement and the written reasons must be said and produced at the same instant in time and that any delay (presumably as little as one hour) between the actual hearing and the written reasons would be unacceptable. However, our Ree panel obviously did not like that result and certified the question hoping for a reversal. It was not to be, for the Supreme Court, in a very recent opinion upheld our earlier Ree decision. Ree v. State, 14 F.L.W. 565 (Fla. November 16, 1989).
The Supreme Court, citing other cases to support the proposition that the written reasons must be contemporaneous with the oral pronouncement, held that the word "contemporaneous" means "at the time of sentencing." In other words, they construed "contemporaneous" as being synonymous with "instantaneous."
We are required, most properly so, to adhere to the dictates of our superiors in Tallahassee, yet we are still unhappy with this result....
....
Parenthetically, we would also point out that the oral reasons given for the departure at the sentencing hearing sub judice dovetailed with those set forth in the subsequently written order, except that the former are more wordy and the latter include case citations. Accordingly, there is no prejudice to the defendant, particularly since there is no change in the actual sentence imposed.
The dicta herein should not...
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Smith v. State
...written reasons. However, we disallowed similarly situated defendants in other cases to benefit from the same rule. In State v. Williams, 576 So.2d 281 (Fla.1991), we approved a departure sentence that had been imposed without contemporaneous written reasons because the sentence had been im......
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Taylor v. State
...(Fla. 5th DCA 1991), in which the Fifth District Court of Appeal issued a per curiam affirmance based on the authority of State v. Williams, 576 So.2d 281 (Fla.1991); Lipscomb v. State, 573 So.2d 429 (Fla. 5th DCA) (en banc), dismissed, 581 So.2d 1310 (Fla.1991); and Flowers v. State, 567 S......
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Taylor v. State, 90-1519
...and Bonnie Jean Parrish, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for appellee. PER CURIAM. AFFIRMED on the authority of (1) State v. Williams, 576 So.2d 281 (Fla.1991); (2) Lipscomb v. State, 573 So.2d 429 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991) (en banc); (3) Adams v. State, 577 So.2d 963 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991), on reh......
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Blair v. State
...our subsequently issued Ree opinion was given only prospective application. We reaffirmed the prospective nature of Ree in State v. Williams, 576 So.2d 281 (Fla.1991), and State v. Lyles, 576 So.2d 706 (Fla.1991). Now, we have suddenly changed directions in Smith v. State by holding that Re......