Case ID: so2d_706/html/1380-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM. COPE, Judge", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Luis Mario RUBALCABA, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
    No. 97-2966.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
    March 25, 1998.
    Luis Mario Rubalcaba, in pro. per.
    Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Sylvie Perez Posner, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
    Before JORGENSON, COPE and GODERICH, JJ.
   PER CURIAM.

We affirm the trial court’s order that grants in part, and denies in part, defendant’s motion to correct an illegal sentence. However, we remand with directions to the trial court to correct the two typographical errors in the order on appeal as follows. On page one of the order, what appears in the last line as “Count IV” shall be corrected to read “Count VI.” On page two of the order, on the first line, Roman Numeral “II” shall be corrected to read Roman Numeral “HI.”

Affirmed; remanded with directions.

JORGENSON and GODERICH, JJ., concur.

COPE, Judge

(concurring in part and dissenting in part).

Because defendant-appellant Luis Mario Rubalcaba challenged the fifty-year sentences imposed on counts I through VI, I concur that the trial court had the power to restructure the sentences so as to accomplish the original sentencing intent. See Blackshear v. State, 531 So.2d 956, 958 (Fla.1988); Fasenmyer v. State, 457 So.2d 1361, 1365 (Fla.1984). I would strike that part of the order which resentences the defendant on count VIII, because the five-year term on that count has been fully served and thus has expired.

I would point out that in reality the defendant’s only illegal sentence was on count I. On that count, fifty years was imposed on a life felony where the applicable legal maximum was forty years. See § 775.082(8)(a), Fla. Stat. (1983). Resentencing on that count was appropriate.

Counts II through VI were properly reflected on the judgment as first degree felonies, and each was a first-degree felony punishable by life imprisonment. See id. §§ 810.02(2), 812.13(2)(a). As to those counts, fifty years was a legal sentence. See Patterson v. State, 693 So.2d 74, 75 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997). Although the trial court had the authority to restructure the sentences in response to defendant’s motion, it was unnecessary to do so because the sentences on counts II through VI were legal. 
      
      . The reference to section 775.087, Florida Statutes, on the judgment is evidently intended to refer to the three-year mandatory minimum sentence of section 775.087(2), which was imposed on counts I-VZ in this case.