Title: State Of Florida v. Sean E. Cregan

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC04-1461 
____________ 
 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA, 
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
SEAN E. CREGAN, 
Respondent. 
 
[July 7, 2005] 
 
CANTERO, J. 
 
We must decide whether a court may grant jail-time credit for time spent in 
a drug rehabilitation facility as a condition of community control.  The district 
court below held it could, Cregan v. State, 884 So. 2d 127, 128 (Fla. 4th DCA 
2004), but certified conflict with two district courts that held it could not.  See 
Molina v. State, 867 So. 2d 645 (Fla. 3d DCA 2004); Toney v. State, 817 So. 2d 
924 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002).  We have jurisdiction to resolve the certified conflict.  
See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.; State v. Cregan, 889 So. 2d 72 (Fla. 2005) 
(granting review).  For the reasons explained below, we hold that a defendant who 
 
 
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violates the conditions of his community control cannot receive credit against a 
subsequent prison sentence for the time he spent in a drug rehabilitation facility. 
I.  FACTS 
 
Sean E. Cregan was sentenced to one year of community control, to be 
followed by one year of probation.  As a special condition of his community 
control, Cregan attended a six-month drug rehabilitation program at a facility 
called Turning Point Bridge.  After completing the program, however, he violated 
the conditions of his community control.  The court then sentenced him to 30.1 
months in prison. 
Cregan filed a motion under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(c) 
seeking credit against his prison sentence for the 186 days he spent at Turning 
Point Bridge.  The trial court summarily denied the motion.  Cregan then filed a 
motion to correct his sentence under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850.  He 
again argued that his drug rehabilitation program was the functional equivalent of 
jail time and, under section 921.161(1), Florida Statutes (2003), should have been 
credited against his sentence.  The trial court summarily denied that motion as 
well. 
On appeal, the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed and remanded for an 
evidentiary hearing.  Cregan, 884 So. 2d at 128.  The district court concluded that, 
although the trial court did have “discretion to deny credit for the Turning Point 
 
 
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Bridge drug program,” it should not have “denied credit as a matter of law . . . 
without affording Cregan an evidentiary hearing.”  Id.  The district court certified 
conflict with Toney, 817 So. 2d at 926, and Molina, 867 So. 2d at 645, both of 
which upheld the denial of credit as a matter of law.  We now resolve the conflict. 
II. ANALYSIS 
 
The statute that governs jail-time credit is section 921.161(1), Florida 
Statutes (2003).  It provides: 
A sentence of imprisonment shall not begin to run before the date it is 
imposed, but the court imposing a sentence shall allow a defendant 
credit for all of the time she or he spent in the county jail before 
sentence.  The credit must be for a specified period of time and shall 
be provided for in the sentence. 
Read literally, this statute applies only to time a prisoner spends in the county jail 
awaiting a sentence.  But we have interpreted the statute to require credit for time 
served “in any institution serving as the functional equivalent of a county jail.”  
Tal-Mason v. State, 515 So. 2d 738, 740 (Fla. 1987).  We held in Tal-Mason, for 
example, that a defendant was entitled to credit for the five years he was confined 
at state mental hospitals before trial.  Id. at 738, 740.   
 
Nevertheless, we have narrowly interpreted what we called “the functional 
equivalent of a county jail.”  Time spent in the control release program, Gay v. 
Singletary, 700 So. 2d 1220, 1222 (Fla. 1997), or in a drug rehabilitation facility as 
a condition of probation, Pennington v. State, 398 So. 2d 815, 816 (Fla. 1981), is 
 
 
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not the functional equivalent of time spent in a county jail.  See Tal-Mason, 515 
So. 2d at 739 (distinguishing Pennington on the ground that “participation in [a 
probationary] rehabilitation program does not constitute a coercive deprivation of 
liberty”).  We now confront the slightly different issue of whether a defendant may 
be given jail-time credit when the time spent in a drug rehabilitation facility was a 
condition of community control instead of probation. 
 
We first applied the jail-time credit statute to community control in Fraser v. 
State, 602 So. 2d 1299 (Fla. 1992).  Fraser involved the following certified 
question: “When the trial court sentences a defendant to a period of time under the 
Department of Corrections, pursuant to a violation of community control, can he 
be given credit for time served on community control under section 921.161, 
Florida Statutes (1985)?”  Id. at 1300.  The case involved unusual facts: the 
petitioner had been successfully completing a sentence of community control when 
he was informed that, due solely to a trial court error, the sentence was illegally 
imposed.  We concluded that “it would be unfair and inequitable to penalize him 
for a clerical mistake for which he was not responsible.”  Id.  We therefore held 
that “[u]nder the circumstances presented” the petitioner was entitled to credit for 
the time he had spent in community control.  Id.   
 
We later confined Fraser’s holding to the unique circumstances involved.  
See Young v. State, 697 So. 2d 75 (Fla. 1997).  In Young, the petitioner had been 
 
 
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given a prison sentence to be followed by a period of community control.  Id. at 76.  
After serving his entire prison sentence and part of his community control, he 
violated the conditions of his community control.  Id.  The trial court refused to 
give him credit against his subsequent prison sentence for the time he spent in 
community control.  Id.  We upheld that decision, noting that section 948.06(2), 
Florida Statutes (1993), provided that “[n]o part of the time that the defendant is on 
probation or in community control shall be considered as any part of the time that 
he shall be sentenced to serve.”  We interpreted that provision (since renumbered 
as section 948.06(3), see ch. 97-299, § 13, Laws of Fla.) as establishing a general 
rule that “credit cannot be given for time served on community control.”  Young, 
697 So. 2d at 77.  Fraser, we explained, merely “recognized a limited exception to 
this general rule” for those unusual circumstances “when the original term of 
community control is revoked as illegal.”  Id. at 77 n.6.1 
                                          
 
1 We are baffled by the parties’ failure in their merits briefs to cite section 
948.06(3), Fraser, or Young.  Those authorities directly address whether jail-time 
credit may be granted for time spent in community control.  After we ordered 
supplemental briefing, the State argued that those authorities control.  Cregan 
attempted to distinguish Fraser and Young by arguing that they “impermissibly 
extend” the meaning of section 948.06(3), which essentially argues for receding 
from controlling precedent.  We remind counsel of their obligation to disclose 
controlling legal authority, even if it is “directly adverse to the position of the 
client and not disclosed by opposing counsel.”  R. Regulating Fla. Bar 4.3-3(a)(3).  
We remind counsel as well of their duty to “act with reasonable diligence” in 
locating controlling authority.  R. Regulating Fla. Bar 4-1.3.  If attorneys arguing 
before this Court believe that seemingly controlling authority is distinguishable, 
then they should explain the distinction, not ignore the authority. 
 
 
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After Young, three district courts have held that the plain meaning of section 
948.06(3) forbids jail-time credit for time spent in community control, with the 
limited exception adopted in Fraser.  See Robinson v. State, 850 So. 2d 658, 661 
(Fla. 1st DCA 2003) (holding that “time served on community control may not be 
applied to a post-revocation sentence of incarceration”); Griffin v. State, 838 So. 
2d 1218, 1220 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003) (holding that “Florida law dictates that credit 
cannot be given for time served on community control”); Toomajan v. State, 785 
So. 2d 1275, 1276 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001) (holding that “credit cannot be awarded for 
time served on community control”). 
Despite this clear statutory directive, Cregan insists he is entitled to credit 
for the time he spent in a drug rehabilitation facility as a condition of community 
control.  He argues, first, that section 948.06(3) applies only when the revocation 
of a defendant’s community control results in supervised release, as opposed to 
imprisonment.  The entire provision reads: 
When the court imposes a subsequent term of supervision 
following a revocation of probation or community control, it shall not 
provide credit for time served while on probation or community 
control toward any subsequent term of probation or community 
control.  However, the court may not impose a subsequent term of 
probation or community control which, when combined with any 
amount of time served on preceding terms of probation or community 
control for offenses before the court for sentencing, would exceed the 
maximum penalty allowable as provided by s. 775.082.  No part of the 
time that the defendant is on probation or in community control shall 
be considered as any part of the time that he or she shall be sentenced 
to serve. 
 
 
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§ 948.06(3), Fla. Stat. (2003).   
Cregan claims that the first sentence of section 948.06(3) modifies the last 
one.  That is, he argues that the statute only applies when, after a violation of 
probation or community control, a court imposes a further term of probation or 
community control.  This argument overlooks the plain language of the last 
sentence.  It also ignores the history of the statute.  For more than fifty years, the 
last sentence of section 948.06(3) stood alone.  See ch. 20519, § 26, Laws of Fla 
(1941).  We interpreted it in Young.  Approving the district court’s decision in 
Young v. State, 678 So. 2d 427 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996), we held that the provision 
prohibited a court only from applying time spent on probation or community 
control to a subsequent term of incarceration.  See Young, 697 So. 2d at 77 n.5 
(“The term ‘sentence’ in section 948.06 refers to incarceration.  It does not refer to 
probation.  Nor does the term ‘sentence’ refer to community control.”) (citations 
omitted).  During the period between the district court’s decision and ours, the 
Legislature added the other two sentences.  See ch. 97-78, § 23, Laws of Fla.  
Therefore, the statute now prohibits a court from applying time spent on probation 
or community control even to a subsequent term of probation or community 
control.  As we explained, the amendment lent “further support [to] our conclusion 
that the legislature does not intend that a releasee who violates the terms and 
 
 
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conditions of release receive credit for time spent under that failed supervision.”  
Gay, 700 So. 2d at 1222 n.5.  Our holding in Young therefore remains valid. 
Cregan’s other argument against applying section 948.06(3) is that time 
spent in a drug rehabilitation program as a condition of community control is 
significantly more restrictive than time spent purely on community control, and 
that an evidentiary hearing is necessary to determine whether his particular 
program was the functional equivalent of time served in a county jail under section 
921.161(1).  We disagree.  Section 948.06(3) admits of no exceptions: “No part of 
the time that the defendant is . . . in community control shall be considered as any 
part of the time that he or she shall be sentenced to serve.”  § 948.06(3), Fla. Stat. 
(2003).  We decline to create an exception for time spent in a drug rehabilitation 
facility as a condition of community control.  As we have previously explained, 
community control is by nature restrictive.  See State v. Mestas, 507 So. 2d 587, 
588 (Fla. 1987) (referring to community control as “a harsh and more severe 
alternative to ordinary probation”); see also Fraser, 602 So. 2d at 1300 (referring to 
community control as “a more coercive deprivation of liberty and a more serious 
penalty than probation”).  It is defined as “a form of intensive, supervised custody 
in the community,” pursuant to which an offender’s “freedom . . . is restricted 
within the community, home, or noninstitutional residential placement and specific 
sanctions are imposed and enforced.”  § 948.001(2), Fla. Stat. (2003).  Those 
 
 
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sanctions can be quite strict, including “curfew, revocation or suspension of the 
driver’s license, community service, deprivation of nonessential activities or 
privileges, or other appropriate restraints on the offender’s liberty.”  
§ 948.01(3)(a), Fla. Stat. (2003).  Given that community control is restrictive by 
definition, we decline to conclude that treatment in a drug rehabilitation facility is 
so much more restrictive as to be tantamount to confinement in the county jail. 
We also decline to read the jail-time credit statute as overriding the plain 
language of section 948.06(3).  The jail-time credit statute requires that a defendant 
be credited for time “spent in the county jail before sentence.”  Although we have 
read that language as extending to analogous settings, such a reading should not 
frustrate section 948.06(3), which specifically precludes jail-time credit for time 
spent in community control.  As we have recently emphasized, “a specific statute 
covering a particular subject area always controls over a statute covering the same 
and other subjects in more general terms.”  Stoletz v. State, 875 So. 2d 572, 575 
(Fla. 2004) (quoting McKendry v. State, 641 So. 2d 45, 46 (Fla. 1994)).  Thus, we 
must respect the specific directive in section 948.06(3). 
III. CONCLUSION 
We hold today, as we did in Young, that a defendant who violates the 
conditions of community control cannot be given credit against a subsequent term 
of incarceration for the time spent in community control.  See § 948.06(3), Fla. 
 
 
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Stat. (2003).  This prohibition applies when a defendant spends time in a drug 
rehabilitation facility as a condition of his community control.  We therefore quash 
the decision of the district court and hold that the trial court correctly denied jail-
time credit as a matter of law. 
It is so ordered. 
PARIENTE, C.J., and WELLS, ANSTEAD, QUINCE, and BELL, JJ., concur. 
LEWIS, J., concurs in result only. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal - Certified 
Direct Conflict of Decisions 
 
 
Fourth District - Case No. 4D04-1180 
 
 
(Broward County) 
 
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, Celia Terenzio, 
Bureau Chief, and Melanie A. Dale, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm 
Beach, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner 
 
Bianca G. Liston and James K. Clark of Clark, Robb, Mason, Coulombe, 
Buschman and Cecere, Miami, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondent