Case ID: so2d_477/html/0570-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "OVERTON, Justice.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Edward Lee WILLIAMS, Respondent.
    No. 66288.
    Supreme Court of Florida.
    Oct. 17, 1985.
    Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Joan Fowler Rossin, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for petitioner.
    Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender and Tatjana Ostapoff, Asst. Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, for respondent.
   OVERTON, Justice.

This is a petition to review Williams v. State, 462 So.2d 23 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984), remanding respondent’s case for resentenc-ing because of the trial court’s use of prior convictions as the reason for departure from the sentencing guidelines and certifying the following question as a matter of great public importance:

If the scoresheets make provision for prior convictions, can those convictions also constitute clear and convincing reasons for aggravated punishment outside the guidelines?

Id. at 24. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.

We answered the question in Hendrix v. State, 475 So.2d 1218, (Fla.1985), in which we held that, since prior convictions are already factored in as a part of the presumptive guidelines sentence, they may not be used as a clear and convincing reason for departure. See also Deer v. State, 476 So.2d 163 (Fla.1985); Gregory v. State, 475 So.2d 1221 (Fla.1985).

Accordingly, we approve the decision of the district court.

It is so ordered.

BOYD, C.J., and ADKINS, McDONALD, EHRLICH and SHAW, JJ., concur.