Case ID: so2d_577/html/0702-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM. LETTS, Judge,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Randy DEMONS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
    No. 90-0283.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
    April 10, 1991.
    John H. Power, Vero Beach, for appellant.
    Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Sylvia Alonso, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellee.
   PER CURIAM.

We find that the judgment and conviction should be affirmed in all respects; however, we find error in the trial court’s sentencing of the defendant as a habitual offender on count II without providing specific reasons therefor.

We reverse the sentence as to count II only and we remand for resentencing on this count. The trial judge should state with specificity the reasons for sentencing any defendant as a habitual offender. Williams v. State, 532 So.2d 1341 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988).

GUNTHER and POLEN, JJ., concur.

LETTS, J., concurs specially with opinion.

LETTS, Judge,

specially concurring.

I concur because I must. Never mind Williams, we are mandated to do so by our supreme court’s decision in Walker v. State, 462 So.2d 452 (Fla.1985). However, I grow impatient with the ever increasing demands the appellate courts place on already overburdened trial judges. More and more, we require them to justify themselves in minute detail or we will reverse. As I see it, trial judges should not have to carry the burden of proof to establish they were not wrong. To the contrary, it should be the duty of the criminal-appellant to overcome the presumption that the trial court was right. If any sentencing discretion in criminal cases is not long gone, it is certainly soon to go.

It is perfectly obvious, from a study of this record, (the notice to seek enhanced penalty, coupled with perusal of the PSI and the dialogue between the judge and the respective attorneys at the sentencing hearing), that the defendant was enhanced because the court thought the public needed to be protected from a career criminal. In fact, the “notice of intent to seek enhanced penalties” specifically stated, “The defendant is a habitual criminal in which protection of the public will best be served by a sentence with enhanced penalties.” If this were a case of first impression, I would affirm it.