Title: Noel v. State

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC14-274 
____________ 
 
JEAN CLAUDE NOEL,  
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA,  
Respondent. 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC14-1952 
____________ 
 
JEAN CLAUDE NOEL,  
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA,  
Respondent. 
 
[April 21, 2016] 
 
PER CURIAM. 
 
This case is before the Court for review of the en banc decision of the Fourth 
District Court of Appeal in Noel v. State, 127 So. 3d 769 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013) (en 
banc), which certified that its decision is in direct conflict with the decision of the 
 
 
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Fifth District Court of Appeal in Nezi v. State, 119 So. 3d 517 (Fla. 5th DCA 
2013).  Petitioner also seeks review of Noel on the ground that it expressly and 
directly conflicts with Nezi on a question of law.  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, 
§ 3(b)(3), (4), Fla. Const.1   
 
The question in this case concerns the constitutionality of the trial court’s 
imposition of a sentence which provided that if the defendant made a certain 
restitution payment within sixty days, then his prison term would be reduced from 
ten years to eight years.  As we fully explain below, we hold that the trial court’s 
sentence violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the 
United States Constitution.  We therefore quash the Fourth District’s decision in 
Noel and approve the Fifth District’s decision in Nezi to the extent it found the 
sentence in that case to be unconstitutional. 
FACTS 
 
Following a jury trial, Jean Claude Noel was convicted of one count of 
conspiracy to commit racketeering and one count of first-degree grand theft.  The 
charges stemmed “from an elaborate scheme to steal advance fees from victims 
who sought to obtain funding for their business projects.”  Noel, 127 So. 3d at 770.  
The following exchange took place at Noel’s sentencing: 
THE COURT:  All right.  Let me ask this of Mr. Noel. 
                                          
 
 
1.  After granting Noel’s petition for belated discretionary review and 
motion for reinstatement, we consolidated case nos. SC14-1952 and SC14-274. 
 
 
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Mr. Noel are you in a position where you can make any 
restitutions on this case, as part of a–of a sentence here? 
 
 
In other words, you know, you heard that Mr. [Warren] Berkle2 
made [up front] restitution of two-hundred ten-thousand dollars 
towards the victims. 
 
 
And you heard from the different people here, who were 
victims, and it shows, according to the chart, which only shows the 
documented money that you received, it shows you received two-
hundred five-thousand three-hundred fifty-six dollars and two cents, 
which is 16.73 percent of the proceeds of the—of the charges that 
were alleged in the Information. 
 
 
What position are you in, at this point, to make any up front 
payment of restitution?  And–I don’t know, because it’s going to be 
based on your ability to tell me that. 
 
NOEL:  Well, of course, I have been also incarcerated for three years 
now. 
 
THE COURT:  Right.  That’s why I’m asking. 
 
NOEL:  Limited, sir.  But there would be an amount that could be 
negotiated. 
 
THE COURT:  Well, I’m not asking for you a negotiation, I’m asking 
you reasonably without your family starving, because they, obviously, 
are not charged, not involved.  So what amount of restitution, give me 
a range?  If you don’t have an exact number– 
 
[DEFENSE COUNSEL:]  Your Honor, negotiated, he didn’t mean 
negotiate with the Court, but negotiate with other members of the 
family. 
 
THE COURT:  That would raise money with him. 
                                          
 
 
2.  The record reflects that codefendant Berkle was sentenced to ten years’ 
probation without any prison or jail time. 
 
 
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[DEFENSE COUNSEL:]  Yes, that’s what he intended.  I don’t 
believe he knows a figure at this juncture, because we did discuss it. 
 
 THE COURT:  If you have an idea, Mr. Noel, just give me a range. 
 
 
You don’t have to give me an exact number, just a range. 
 
NOEL:  I’m sorry.  Your Honor.  I have to ask, would this be what 
would be made on a regular— 
 
THE COURT:  No, an up-front lump sum basis. 
 
NOEL:  A lump up-front figure would be somewhere between twenty 
to forty-thousand dollars plus other things. 
 
[DEFENSE COUNSEL:]  Just for the record, Judge, I wasn’t finished 
with my distinguishing Mr. [Ralph] McNamara from my client. 
 
THE COURT:  Go ahead.  I’m sorry.  You know, I get sidetracked. 
 
[DEFENSE COUNSEL:]  That’s okay.  I’m glad Your Honor asked 
the questions. 
 
 
Noel’s privately-retained counsel requested a prison sentence of 3.8 years, 
while the prosecutor sought a minimum of fifteen years in prison.  According to 
Noel’s sentencing scoresheet, the lowest possible prison sentence was 3.81 years, 
while the maximum prison sentence for each offense was thirty years.  §§ 
812.014(2), 895.03(4), 895.04(1), 775.082(3)(b), Fla. Stat. (2009).   
 
At the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, the trial court ordered Noel to 
serve ten years in prison followed by ten years of probation:   
THE COURT:  Okay.  All right.  Here’s the sentence with—and I’m 
hoping that this is a fair sentence.  And I’m hoping it accomplishes 
something to these victims that have lost so much as a result of this 
 
 
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whole incident.  And I hope it gives Mr. Noel a chance to restart his 
life, as well, without any continuing problems. 
 
 
It’s going to be ten years Florida State Prison followed by ten 
years probation.  If he makes restitution of twenty-thousand dollars 
within sixty days, his sentence will be mitigated—the jail time portion 
will be mitigated to eight years. 
 
(Emphasis added.)  The trial court further ordered, as conditions of probation, that 
Noel owed six hundred fifty thousand dollars in restitution and provided for 
income deduction of fifteen percent.  The trial court’s written order provided that 
“if the Defendant pays $20,000 within 60 days of the Court’s Order, the [ten-year] 
prison portion of his sentence shall be mitigated to eight (8) years state prison.”  
Noel’s ten-year prison sentence was not mitigated because he failed to make the 
restitution payment of $20,000 within sixty days.  The trial court denied Noel’s 
counsel’s request for an extension of the sixty-day-period.   
 
On appeal,3 Noel claimed that his sentence violated his equal protection 
rights.  Noel, 127 So. 3d at 771.  Finding that the imposed sentence did not give 
rise to any constitutional violation, the Fourth District, sitting en banc, held that “a 
judge’s use of an incentive to encourage the payment of restitution is not so 
arbitrary or unfair as to be a denial of due process.”  Id. at 772, 778.  The district 
court reasoned: 
                                          
 
 
3.  The Office of the Public Defender was appointed to represent Noel on 
appeal. 
 
 
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[C]onsistent with the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States 
Constitution, when deciding what sentence to initially impose, a 
sentencing judge may consider the entire background of a defendant, 
including employment history, financial resources, and ability to make 
restitution.  The Constitution does not preclude a judge from actively 
using the sentencing process to encourage payment of restitution to 
victims of crimes, nor does it prevent a judge from showing mercy by 
reducing the severity of a previously imposed legal sentence. 
 
Id. at 770-71.  The Fourth District found that the trial court imposed an appropriate 
sentence based not on Noel’s ability to pay restitution, but on his prior record and 
the extent of the criminal scheme employed.  Id. at 777.   
 
The district court explained that Noel’s sentence was authorized by section 
921.185, Florida Statutes (2010), which provides, as to crimes involving property, 
that a trial court, “in its discretion, shall consider any degree of restitution a 
mitigation of the severity of an otherwise appropriate sentence,” and Florida Rule 
of Criminal Procedure 3.800(c), which permits trial courts to reduce a legal 
sentence within sixty days after its imposition.  Id. at 775.   
 
In discussing case law from the United States Supreme Court, the district 
court explained that Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 662 (1983), “reaffirm[ed] 
the broad discretion of a judge to consider a defendant’s financial resources when 
imposing the original sentence.”  Noel, 127 So. 3d at 773.  The district court 
expressed that Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235, 243 (1970) (holding that states 
“may not constitutionally imprison beyond the maximum duration fixed by statute 
a defendant who is financially unable to pay a fine”), and Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 
 
 
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395, 398-99 (1971) (holding that states are prohibited from imposing a fine as a 
sentence and then automatically converting it into a jail term solely because the 
defendant is indigent and cannot forthwith pay the fine in full), have “little 
application” because “[n]either case involved a court’s attempt to encourage 
restitution after imposing a lawful sentence of incarceration.”  Id. at 772-73. 
 
The Fourth District accordingly affirmed Noel’s convictions and sentences, 
certified conflict with Nezi, 119 So. 3d 517,4 and receded from DeLuise v. State, 
72 So. 3d 248 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011).5  Noel, 127 So. 3d at 770, 778.  
ANALYSIS 
 
Noel claims that his sentence—which provided that if he were to make a 
restitution payment of $20,000 within sixty days, then his prison term would be 
mitigated from ten years to eight years—violates his equal protection and due 
                                          
 
 
4.  In Nezi, the Fifth District held that the trial court violated the defendant’s 
equal protection rights “by imposing a harsher sentence after making it clear that if 
Nezi, at the time of the sentencing hearing, had the financial means to pay a large 
part of the agreed-upon restitution, it would have imposed lesser sanctions.”  Nezi, 
119 So. 3d at 522. 
 
 
5.  In DeLuise, the trial court offered to mitigate the prison sentence of a 
codefendant of Noel’s, Ralph McNamara also known as Ralph DeLuise, if the 
defendant came up with at least $100,000 within sixty days.  72 So. 3d at 250.  The 
Fourth District concluded that the trial court’s offer violated the defendant’s equal 
protection rights constituting fundamental error because it resulted in a harsher 
punishment for an offender who does not have the means to pay and that “the non-
payment of restitution was used as a basis to impose a harsher sentence.”  Id. at 
253-54. 
 
 
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process rights secured under the United States Constitution.  Noel asserts that 
section 921.185, which affords discretion to the trial courts to consider restitution 
as mitigation, was unconstitutionally applied.   
 
“The constitutionality of a statute is a question of law subject to de novo 
review.”  Crist v. Ervin, 56 So. 3d 745, 747 (Fla. 2010).  In considering a challenge 
to the constitutionality of a statute, this Court is “obligated to accord legislative 
acts a presumption of constitutionality and to construe challenged legislation to 
effect a constitutional outcome whenever possible.”  Fla. Dep’t of Revenue v. City 
of Gainesville, 918 So. 2d 250, 256 (Fla. 2005) (quoting Fla. Dep’t of Revenue v. 
Howard, 916 So. 2d 640, 642 (Fla. 2005)).  Because Noel did not raise the 
constitutionality of his sentence in the trial court, Noel must establish that the trial 
court committed fundamental error.  See F.B. v. State, 852 So. 2d 226, 229 (Fla. 
2003).   
Restitution 
 
The “purpose of restitution is not only to compensate the victim, but also to 
serve the rehabilitative, deterrent, and retributive goals of the criminal justice 
system.  The trial court is best able to determine how imposing restitution may best 
serve those goals in each case.”  State v. Hawthorne, 573 So. 2d 330, 333 (Fla. 
1991) (quoting Spivey v. State, 531 So. 2d 965, 967 (Fla. 1988)).  Trial courts 
“shall order the defendant to make restitution to the victim for: 1. Damage or loss 
 
 
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caused directly or indirectly by the defendant’s offense; and 2. Damage or loss 
related to the defendant’s criminal episode, unless it finds clear and compelling 
reasons not to order such restitution.”  § 775.089(1)(a), Fla. Stat. (2010); see also § 
775.089(6)(a), Fla. Stat. (2010) (stating that in determining whether to order 
restitution and its amount, the trial court “shall consider the amount of the loss 
sustained by any victim as a result of the offense”). 
 
“[T]he defendant’s financial resources or ability to pay does not have to be 
established when the trial court assesses and imposes restitution.”  Del Valle v. 
State, 80 So. 3d 999, 1006 (Fla. 2011).6  In sentencing a defendant for the 
conviction of a crime involving property, a trial court, “in its discretion, shall 
consider any degree of restitution a mitigation of the severity of an otherwise 
appropriate sentence.”  § 921.185, Fla. Stat. (2010).  A trial court is authorized in 
imposing a downward departure sentence where “[t]he need for payment of 
restitution to the victim outweighs the need for a prison sentence.”  § 
921.0026(2)(e), Fla. Stat. (2010).  “[A] defendant’s ability to pay restitution is a 
nonissue when the court is weighing the need for restitution versus the need for 
imprisonment.”  Banks v. State, 732 So. 2d 1065, 1069 (Fla. 1999).  At the time of 
                                          
 
 
6.  Previously, however, trial courts were required to consider the 
defendant’s financial resources when imposing restitution.  See § 775.089(6), Fla. 
Stat. (1993) (“The court, in determining whether to order restitution and the 
amount of such restitution, shall consider . . . the financial resources of the 
defendant.”).   
 
 
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the enforcement of the restitution order, trial courts are required to consider the 
defendant’s financial resources.  See § 775.089(6)(b), Fla. Stat. (2010). 
United States Supreme Court Decisions 
 
In Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12 (1956), the United States Supreme Court 
held that the failure to provide an indigent criminal defendant with a trial transcript 
at public expense for the prosecuting of an appeal violated the equal protection 
clause.  Id. at 19.  A plurality of the Court explained, “There can be no equal 
justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.”  
Id.  The Court added the following: “At all stages of the proceedings the Due 
Process and Equal Protection Clauses protect persons like petitioners from 
invidious discriminations”  Id. at 19.  The Court continued: 
[O]ur own constitutional guaranties of due process and equal 
protection both call for procedures in criminal trials which allow no 
invidious discriminations between persons and different groups of 
persons.   Both equal protection and due process emphasize the central 
aim of our entire judicial system—all people charged with crime 
must, so far as the law is concerned, “stand on an equality before the 
bar of justice in every American court.”  
 
Id. at 17 (quoting Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227, 241 (1940)). 
 
In Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235 (1970), having been convicted of petty 
theft, the defendant was sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay a $500 
fine plus court costs.  Id. at 236.  Pursuant to a state statute, the trial court ordered 
that if the defendant was in default at the expiration of his prison term, then he 
 
 
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would remain in jail to “work off” the monetary obligations.  Id.  Because he could 
not pay the fine and court costs, the defendant was confined for 101 days beyond 
the statutory maximum period for the crime.  Id. at 237.   
 
The Supreme Court held that states “may not constitutionally imprison 
beyond the maximum duration fixed by statute a defendant who is financially 
unable to pay a fine.”  Id. at 243.  The equal protection clause “requires that the 
statutory ceiling placed on imprisonment for any substantive offense be the same 
for all defendants irrespective of their economic status.”  Id. at 244.  The Court 
determined that the application of the statute at issue “works an invidious 
discrimination solely because [the defendant] is unable to pay the fine.”  Id. at 242.  
The Court acknowledged that “[t]he mere fact that an indigent in a particular case 
may be imprisoned for a longer time than a non-indigent convicted of the same 
offense does not, of course, give rise to a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”  
Id. at 243.  
 
In Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395 (1971), the defendant accumulated fines 
totaling $425 for traffic offenses.  Id. at 396.  Despite the fact that the traffic 
offenses were punishable by fines only, the trial court ordered the defendant to a 
municipal prison farm to satisfy the fines at a rate of $5 per day, or eighty-five 
days—pursuant to a state statute and municipal ordinance—because he was 
indigent.  Id. at 396-97.  The Supreme Court held that the defendant’s 
 
 
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imprisonment for nonpayment “constitutes precisely the same unconstitutional 
discrimination since, like Williams, petitioner was subjected to imprisonment 
solely because of his indigency.”  Id. at 398.  The Court in Tate determined that 
states “cannot, consistently with the Equal Protection Clause, limit the punishment 
to payment of the fine if one is able to pay it, yet convert the fine into a prison term 
for an indigent defendant without the means to pay his fine.”  Id. at 399.  The 
Supreme Court provided: 
the same constitutional defect condemned in Williams also inheres in 
jailing an indigent for failing to make immediate payment of any fine, 
whether or not the fine is accompanied by a jail term and whether or 
not the jail term of the indigent extends beyond the maximum term 
that may be imposed on a person willing and able to pay a fine.  In 
each case, the Constitution prohibits the State from imposing a fine as 
a sentence and then automatically converting it into a jail term solely 
because the defendant is indigent and cannot forthwith pay the fine in 
full. 
 
Id. at 398 (quoting Morris v. Schoonfield, 399 U.S. 508, 509 (1970) (White, J., 
concurring)).  Under Williams and Tate, “if the State determines a fine or 
restitution to be the appropriate and adequate penalty for the crime, it may not 
thereafter imprison a person solely because he lacked the resources to pay it.”  
Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 667-68 (1983).   
 
In Bearden, the trial court revoked the defendant’s probation and sentenced 
him to prison because he failed to timely pay his fine and restitution’s remaining 
balance, which he was required to do as a condition of probation.  Id. at 662.  The 
 
 
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Supreme Court held that the trial court erred in “automatically revoking probation 
because petitioner could not pay his fine, without determining that petitioner had 
not made sufficient bona fine efforts to pay or that adequate alternative forms of 
punishment did not exist.”  Id.  The Court concluded as follows: 
 
We hold, therefore, that in revocation proceedings for failure to 
pay a fine or restitution, a sentencing court must inquire into the 
reasons for the failure to pay.  If the probationer willfully refused to 
pay or failed to make sufficient bona fide efforts legally to acquire the 
resources to pay, the court may revoke probation and sentence the 
defendant to imprisonment within the authorized range of its 
sentencing authority.  If the probationer could not pay despite 
sufficient bona fide efforts to acquire the resources to do so, the court 
must consider alternate measures of punishment other than 
imprisonment.  Only if alternate measures are not adequate to meet 
the State’s interests in punishment and deterrence may the court 
imprison a probationer who has made sufficient bona fide efforts to 
pay.  To do otherwise would deprive the probationer of his conditional 
freedom simply because, through no fault of his own, he cannot pay 
the fine.  Such a deprivation would be contrary to the fundamental 
fairness required by the Fourteenth Amendment. 
 
Id. at 672-73.  The Supreme Court ordered the defendant to remain on probation 
based on the notion of fundamental fairness unless it is determined on remand that 
the defendant “did not make sufficient bona fide efforts to pay his fine, or . . . that 
alternate punishment is not adequate to meet the State’s interests in punishment 
and deterrence.”  Id. at 674.  The Supreme Court accordingly reversed the 
judgment upholding the revocation of probation and remanded for a new 
sentencing determination.  Id. 
 
 
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Bearden’s holding represented “a delicate balance between the acceptability, 
and indeed wisdom, of considering all relevant factors when determining an 
appropriate sentence for an individual and the impermissibility of imprisoning a 
defendant solely because of his lack of financial resources.”  Id. at 661.  The Court 
noted that “when determining initially whether the State’s penological interests 
require imposition of a term of imprisonment, the sentencing court can consider the 
entire background of the defendant, including his employment history and financial 
resources.”  Id. at 669-70.   
 
Although “[d]ue process and equal protection principles converge in the 
Court’s analysis,” Bearden suggested that a due process analysis is better-suited for 
issues concerning the treatment of criminal defendants who are indigent: 
 
A due process approach has the advantage in this context of 
directly confronting the intertwined question of the role that a 
defendant’s financial background can play in determining an 
appropriate sentence.  When the court is initially considering what 
sentence to impose, a defendant’s level of financial resources is a 
point on a spectrum rather than a classification.  Since indigency in 
this context is a relative term rather than a classification, fitting “the 
problem of this case into an equal protection framework is a task too 
Procrustean to be rationally accomplished,” North Carolina v. Pearce, 
395 U.S. 711, 723 (1969).  The more appropriate question is whether 
consideration of a defendant’s financial background in setting or 
resetting a sentence is so arbitrary or unfair as to be a denial of due 
process. 
 
Id. at 665, 666 n.8 (emphasis added). 
 
 
 
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Due Process 
 
The due process clause under the United States Constitution provides that no 
State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of 
law.”  U.S. Const. amend. XIV.  This clause “protects the individual against the 
arbitrary and unreasonable exercise of governmental power.”  State v. Robinson, 
873 So. 2d 1205, 1209 (Fla. 2004).  We have said that the due process clause 
“ensure[s] that an indigent probationer is not incarcerated based solely upon 
inability to pay a monetary obligation.”  Del Valle, 80 So. 3d at 1005 (citing 
Bearden, 461 U.S. at 664; U.S. Const. amends. V, XIV).7 
The Certified Conflict Decision 
 
In Nezi, the trial court inquired during sentencing as to how much of the 
$70,000 in restitution the defendant could pay at the time.  119 So. 3d at 518.  
Although the defendant’s offer of $500 was “not gonna be enough,” the court 
would “look at it differently” if her mother came up with about $20,000.  Id. at 
520.  In sentencing the defendant to ten years in prison followed by twenty years of 
probation, the trial court expressed as follows: “If you were to come up with some 
monies, I would consider some modification of this, but I’m going to have to have 
some money you’re going to have to come up with before I consider some other 
                                          
 
 
7.  We note that the Florida Constitution contains an express prohibition 
against imprisonment for debt.  See art. I, § 11, Fla. Const. (“No person shall be 
imprisoned for debt, except in cases of fraud.”).  
 
 
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alternative so for some mitigation.”  Id. at 521.  Thereafter, the defendant moved to 
correct a sentencing error, claiming a denial of equal protection by the imposition 
of a harsher sentence solely because she did not have the ability to pay a large 
portion of the restitution.  Id.  In denying the defendant’s motion, the trial court 
deleted the portion of the sentencing order which stated that the “[c]ourt will 
consider mitigation of sentence upon payment of restitution.”  Id. 
 
In reversing for resentencing, the Fifth District, on appeal, held that the trial 
court violated the defendant’s equal protection rights: 
 
While a defendant’s willingness and capacity to pay restitution 
can be among the reasons a judge may decide to impose a lower 
sentence, the equal protection clause prohibits a judge from 
conditioning a lower sentence on the payment of restitution.  DeLuise 
v. State, 72 So. 3d 248 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011).  Here, the trial court 
violated Nezi’s equal protection rights by imposing a harsher sentence 
after making it clear that if Nezi, at the time of the sentencing hearing, 
had the financial means to pay a large part of the agreed-upon 
restitution, it would have imposed lesser sanctions.  The court did not 
cure the equal protection violation by deleting the provision in the 
sentencing order that it would consider mitigating the sentence if, 
sometime in the future, Nezi paid a substantial amount of money 
toward restitution.  A sentencing order that allows a defendant to 
reduce the length of incarceration if she pays restitution is not 
materially different from a sentencing order that requires the 
defendant to serve more time if she does not pay restitution.  
Regardless of how the trial court phrases its order, the result is a 
shorter term for a defendant if she can and does pay, and a longer term 
if she cannot and does not pay.  This result is clearly prohibited by the 
equal protection clause.  See People v. Collins, 607 N.W.2d 760, 765 
(Mich. Ct. App. 1999). 
 
Id. at 522.  
 
 
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This Case  
 
A trial court may consider a defendant’s financial resources at sentencing.  
See Bearden, 461 U.S. at 669-70.  “But Bearden’s allowance for limited 
consideration of the defendant’s financial background does not undermine the core 
constitutional prohibition against imposition of a longer prison term as a substitute 
for a monetary penalty.”  United States v. Burgum, 633 F.3d 810, 815 (9th Cir. 
2011).  “[I]t is well established that the Constitution forbids imposing a longer 
term of imprisonment based on a defendant’s inability to pay restitution.”  Id. at 
814.  Bearden expressly referred to “the impermissibility of imprisoning a 
defendant solely because of his lack of financial resources.”  Bearden, 461 U.S. at 
661.  We must decide whether the trial court’s “consideration of [Noel’s] financial 
background in setting . . . a sentence is so arbitrary or unfair as to be a denial of 
due process.”  Id. at 666 n.8.   
 
Noel’s sentence included the provision that if he paid $20,000 in restitution 
within sixty days of his sentencing, then his ten-year prison term would be 
mitigated to eight years.  Thus, the length of Noel’s prison sentence was expressly 
conditioned on whether or not Noel paid the sum within sixty days.  Because Noel 
failed to make this restitution payment, he received a harsher prison sentence.  This 
nonpayment of restitution yielded an increase of two years’ incarceration to Noel’s 
sentence, presumably, “solely because of his lack of financial resources.”  See id. 
 
 
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at 661.  This automatic deprivation of two years of Noel’s freedom is “contrary to 
the fundamental fairness required by the Fourteenth Amendment.”  See id. at 673.  
Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court’s sentence violated Noel’s due 
process rights.   
 
As Judge Taylor articulated in her dissent below: 
This type of conditionally mitigated sentence, which offers the 
defendant an opportunity to “buy” a shorter sentence, blurs the line 
between rewarding restitution and impermissibly imposing a longer 
sentence based solely on a defendant's inability to pay.  A defendant 
who cannot and does not come forward with restitution will have to 
serve additional time in prison solely because of his poverty. 
 
Noel, 127 So. 3d at 785 (Taylor, J., dissenting).  We view a sentence providing for 
a reduction of prison time upon the payment of restitution no different than a trial 
court imposing a lengthier sentence if the defendant fails to make a restitution 
payment—both being impermissible sentences.  See Nezi, 119 So. 3d at 522 (“A 
sentencing order that allows a defendant to reduce the length of incarceration if she 
pays restitution is not materially different from a sentencing order that requires the 
defendant to serve more time if she does not pay restitution.”).   
 
The fact that Noel stated at sentencing that he could provide an up front 
figure “somewhere between twenty to forty-thousand dollars,” is immaterial.  
Notably, the record does not establish that Noel actually had the ability to timely 
pay the $20,000 in restitution and that his failure to pay was willful. 
 
 
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While we appreciate the trial court’s desire in seeking that the victims in this 
case are compensated by incentivizing the defendant to “cough up” the money, the 
application of Bearden and the due process principles to this case compel us to 
conclude that the trial court fundamentally erred in crafting Noel’s sentence.  Noel 
is entitled to a resentencing. 
CONCLUSION 
 
In light of the foregoing, we quash the Fourth District’s decision in Noel and 
approve the Fifth District decision in Nezi to the extent that it held the sentence in 
that case to be unconstitutional.8 
 
It is so ordered. 
LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, POLSTON, and PERRY, JJ., concur. 
CANADY, J., dissents with an opinion, in which QUINCE, J., concurs. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND 
IF FILED, DETERMINED.   
 
CANADY, J., dissenting. 
 
Because I would conclude that the trial court’s offer to mitigate Noel’s 
prison sentence as an incentive for Noel to disgorge a portion of his ill-gotten gains 
is not “so arbitrary or unfair as to be a denial of due process[,]” Bearden v. 
Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 666 n.8 (1983), I dissent.  I would adopt the cogent 
                                          
 
 
8.  While the district court in Nezi concluded that the defendant’s sentence 
violated the equal protection clause, Nezi, 119 So. 3d at 522, a due process 
analysis is preferred, Bearden, 461 U.S. at 666 n.8. 
 
 
- 20 - 
reasoning of Judge Gross’s opinion, approve the decision on review, and 
disapprove Nezi v. State, 119 So. 3d 517 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013). 
QUINCE, J., concurs. 
Two Cases: 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Certified 
Direct Conflict of Decisions 
 
 
Fourth District - Case No. 4D10-1765 
 
 
(Broward County) 
 
Carol Stafford Haughwout, Public Defender, and Tatjana Ostapoff, Assistant 
Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida; Consiglia Terenzio, 
Bureau Chief, and Melynda Layne Melear, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm 
Beach, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent