Case Name: Anthony RICHARDSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2002-02-08
Citations: 809 So. 2d 69
Docket Number: No. 2D01-1608
Parties: Anthony RICHARDSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: FULMER and SILBERMAN, JJ., Concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 809
Pages: 69–71

Head Matter:
Anthony RICHARDSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 2D01-1608.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.
Feb. 8, 2002.
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Frederick W. Vollrath, Special Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Jonathan P. Hurley, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Anthony Richardson appeals his conviction for possession of cocaine and the five-year prison sentence imposed. We affirm the conviction without discussion but address the sentencing issue on appeal.
Prior to trial, the State offered a three-year guidelines prison sentence for a guilty plea to three offenses pending against Mr. Richardson. There is no indication the trial judge was involved in the plea negotiations. Mr. Richardson rejected the plea offer and exercised his constitutional right to a jury trial. He was acquitted of two charges and convicted of one lesser-included offense. At sentencing, the trial judge imposed a guidelines sentence of five years in prison. On appeal, Mr. Richardson argues that the record reveals no affirmative reason for the longer sentence other than judicial vindictiveness and therefore the sentence must be reversed.
"An accused cannot be punished by a more severe sentence because he unsuccessfully exercised his constitutional right to stand trial rather than plead guilty." Gillman v. State, 373 So.2d 935, 938 (Fla. 2d DCA 1979), certified question answered, 390 So.2d 62 (Fla.1980). "[A]ny judicially imposed penalty which needlessly discourages assertion of the Fifth Amendment right not to plead guilty and deters the exercise of the Sixth Amendment right to demand a jury trial is patently unconstitutional." Id. Judicial vindictiveness in sentencing is "a term of art which expresses the legal effect of a given objective course of action, and does not imply any personal or subjective animosity between the court . and the defendant." Frazier v. State, 467 So.2d 447, 449 n. 4 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985).
While there are cases recognizing vindictiveness challenges when the judge has been involved in the plea negotiations, this critical fact is not present in the record of this case. In the absence of judicial involvement in the plea negotiations, the burden was on Mr. Richardson to prove actual vindictiveness on the part of the sentencing judge, a burden he has not met. See McDonald v. State, 751 So.2d 56, 59 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999). Accordingly, we affirm the guidelines sentence imposed.
Judgment and sentence affirmed.
FULMER and SILBERMAN, JJ., Concur.
BLUE, C.J., Concurs specially.