Tapia v. State, 86-885
| Decision Date | 03 June 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-885,86-885 |
| Citation | 509 So.2d 354,12 Fla. L. Weekly 1418 |
| Parties | 12 Fla. L. Weekly 1418 Raymond C. TAPIA, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Frank Ragano of Frank Ragano, P.A., Tampa, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Davis G. Anderson, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.
Appellant, Raymond Tapia, appeals from the judgments and sentences imposed upon him after he was found guilty of the offenses of second degree murder and attempted first degree murder. We affirm all of the convictions but remand for resentencing.
Appellant, while on probation for the offenses of second degree grand theft and possession of a counterfeit title, was charged with first degree murder and attempted first degree murder. A jury trial resulted in verdicts finding him guilty of second degree murder and attempted first degree murder. Based upon these verdicts, the trial court revoked appellant's probation and adjudicated him guilty of all four offenses. A guidelines scoresheet prepared for sentencing indicated a sentence range of between seventeen and twenty-two years of imprisonment with a presumptive sentence of twenty years. The trial court departed from the presumptive sentence and imposed four consecutive sentences of imprisonment upon appellant: five years for second degree grand theft, five years for possession of a counterfeit title, fifty years for second degree murder, and thirty years for attempted first degree murder. The court entered a written order setting forth two reasons for imposing the departure sentence. At the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, appellant filed a notice of appeal.
After considering the briefs, record on appeal, and argument of counsel, we find no reversible error in the trial proceedings and, accordingly, affirm appellant's convictions. We do, however, find merit in appellant's contention that the trial court erred in departing from the guidelines in sentencing him.
In its written order, the trial court gave the following reasons for its departure:
1. Said Guideline Sentence does not take into consideration that said Defendant's convictions for Second Degree Murder of Carlos Santana and Attempted First Degree Murder of Jose Sosa resulted from an initially conceived CONTRACT KILLING wherein said Defendant, while on probation for Grand Theft Second Degree and Possession of Counterfeit Title, hired Joe Rodriguez to commit Murder in the First Degree of Jose Sosa.
2. Failure of previous attempts to rehabilitate said Defendant.
The trial court's first reason is invalid because it appears to be based...
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Johnson v. State
...1057 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), review denied, 525 So.2d 880 (Fla.1988); Bogan v. State, 528 So.2d 1341 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988); Tapia v. State, 509 So.2d 354 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987); cf. Braggs v. State, 522 So.2d 536 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988)--were invalid, and we are not convinced that the trial court would hav......
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Louissaint v. State, 89-1803
...a prior record which has been computed into the guideline sentence. Sellers v. State, 559 So.2d 378 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990); Tapia v. State, 509 So.2d 354 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987). Here, while the court did not determine non-amenability merely because the defendant committed three felonies in a short ......
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Davis v. State, 86-1003
...ground--failure of previous attempts to rehabilitate--is also invalid under the circumstances found in the record. Tapia v. State, 509 So.2d 354 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987). Recidivism, alone, cannot support a departure sentence. Williams v. State, 504 So.2d 392, 393 (Fla.1987); Hendrix v. State, 47......
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Sanders v. State, 96-03308
...a prior record that has been computed into the guidelines score. See Sellers v. State, 559 So.2d 378 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990); Tapia v. State, 509 So.2d 354 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987). Next, the trial court found that the "defendant was out of prison only a little more than 9 mos. before he committed new......