Case Name: Kevin D. YASHUS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1999-11-24
Citations: 796 So. 2d 540
Docket Number: No. 98-02194
Parties: Kevin D. YASHUS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: GREEN, OLIVER L., Associate Judge, Concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 796
Pages: 540–544

Head Matter:
Kevin D. YASHUS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 98-02194.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
Nov. 24, 1999.
James B. Gibson, Public Defender and Brynn Newton, Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee and Patrick W. Krechow-ski, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.

Opinion:
CAMPBELL, MONTEREY, Associate Judge.
Appellant, Kevin Yashus, challenges the habitual offender sentence imposed following his violation of probation. We reverse and remand for resentencing. See Daiuto v. State, 734 So.2d 602 (Fla. 5th DCA 1999); Norton v. State, 719 So.2d 985 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998).
Appellant, convicted of three counts of burglary and three counts of grand theft in four separate cases, challenges the habitual offender sentences imposed on a subsequent violation of probation. At issue is whether the trial court, at Appellant's second sentencing on his initial violation of probation, imposed habitual offender sentences, which is a prerequisite to imposition of a habitual offender sentence on a subsequent violation of probation. Our review of the facts and the law leads us to conclude that although the court may have intended to sentence Appellant as a habitual offender, it did not do so under King v. State, 681 So.2d 1136 (Fla.1996).
Specifically, the court in 1992 orally pronounced that it was sentencing Appellant as a habitual offender, but then sentenced him to terms of incarceration and probation that were within the guidelines or the statutory maximum for each offense. When Appellant first violated his probation after serving the inearcerative portion of his sentence, the court again stated that it was sentencing him as a habitual offender, but sentenced him only to probation and community control. This clearly appears to us not to have been a habitual offender sentence. When Appellant violated his probation the second time, and was being sentenced on that violation in 1998 (the sentencing at issue here), the court sentenced Appellant, based on what it believed to be the initial habitualization, to a habitual sentence of ten years' incarceration on each of the six counts. A handwritten note on the scoresheet states that Appellant was being sentenced to ten years' imprisonment as a "Habitual Offender."
Although the State argues that Appellant was sentenced as a habitual offender because the court pronounced that intent, the supreme court rejected that argument in King v. State, 681 So.2d at 1139:
Moreover, the judge need not make a specific finding that an enhanced sentence is not necessary for the protection of the public; the judge necessarily makes such a decision by virtue of sentencing an habitual offender to a more lenient sentence than that required by the habitual felon statute. State v. Rinkins, 646 So.2d 727, 729 (Fla.1994); Geohagen, 639 So.2d at 612. [Emphasis added].
Here, although it appears that the court intended to sentence Appellant as a habitual offender, by imposing inearcerative sentences or probationary terms that fell within the guidelines or the statutory máx-imums, it simply failed to accomplish what it set out to achieve. The fact that Appellant appears to have agreed to habitual offender treatment at the initial sentencing does not change this result. The court in King, addressing this circumstance, stated that even where a defendant agrees to habitual offender treatment, but the negotiated plea is for a sentence that does not exceed the statutory maximum for the offense, the court cannot, on a subsequent violation of probation, rely on the earlier agreement to be treated as a habitual offender to then sentence the defendant to a habitual offender sentence on the violation of probation.
Accordingly, we must conclude that the court erred in imposing habitual offender sentences when Appellant violated his probation. We vacate those sentences and remand for resentencing within the guidelines.
Reversed and remanded.
GREEN, OLIVER L., Associate Judge, Concurs.
FULMER, CAROLYN K, Associate Judge, Dissents with opinion.