Case Name: Brenda Lee NELSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1998-10-01
Citations: 719 So. 2d 1230
Docket Number: No. 97-3435
Parties: Brenda Lee NELSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: BARFIELD, C.J., and WOLF, WEBSTER and DAVIS, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 719
Pages: 1230–1236

Head Matter:
Brenda Lee NELSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 97-3435.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
Oct. 1, 1998.
Rehearing Denied Nov. 5, 1998.
Nancy Daniels, Public Defender; P. Douglas Brinkmeyer, Assistant Public Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General; Daniel A. David, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

Opinion:
GENERAL DIVISION EN BANC
ALLEN, Judge.
Based upon an argument first presented in this direct criminal appeal, the appellant challenges her habitual felony offender sentence for felony petit theft. Although the term of the sentence does not exceed the non-habitual statutory maximum for the offense, we nevertheless conclude, in accordance with State v. Mancino, 714 So.2d 429, 23 Fla. L. Weekly S301 (Fla.1998), that the sentence is illegal, as the face of the record reveals that the sentence otherwise fails to comport with statutory limitations. Because an illegal sentence constitutes fundamental error which may be addressed for the first time on appeal, we vacate the habitual felony offender sentence and remand this case for resentencing.
The statutes limit application of Florida's habitual felony offender sentencing to specified crimes and circumstances. Although most of the limitations are specified in the habitual felony offender statute itself, section 775.084, Florida Statutes, additional limitations may be found elsewhere in the statutes. An example is section 812.014, Florida Statutes, which was amended in 1992 to indicate that habitual felony offender sentencing for felony petit theft is precluded. See Ridley v. State, 702 So.2d 559 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997); Berch v. State, 691 So.2d 1148 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997). The trial court in the present case therefore erred in imposing a habitual felony offender sentence for the appellant's 1996 theft. The more difficult question, however, is whether this unpreserved error is remediable in this direct appeal.
Because the error in the present case is apparent from the face of the trial court record, had the sentence been imposed prior to July 1, 1996, the error would have been correctable on direct appeal despite the absence of preservation in the trial court. See, e.g., State v. Montague, 682 So.2d 1085 (Fla.1996); Taylor v. State, 601 So.2d 540 (Fla.1992); Dailey v. State, 488 So.2d 532 (Fla.1986); State v. Rhoden, 448 So.2d 1013 (Fla.1984). But unpreserved sentencing errors are no longer correctable on direct appeal merely because they are apparent from the face of the record. Consistent with section 924.051(3) and (4), Florida Statues, which became effective on July 1, 1996, as part of the Criminal Appeal Reform Act of 1996, Ch. 96-248, Laws of Florida, Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.140(d) now provides that a sentencing error may be addressed on direct appeal only where the asserted error has been brought to the attention of the trial court at the time of sentencing or by motion pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(b). See Amendments to the Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure, 685 So.2d 773 (Fla.1996).
We have applied the new provisions in denying relief on direct appeal for unpre-served sentencing errors. See, e.g., Middleton v. State, 689 So.2d 304 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997). But, consistent with the legislative intent that section 924.051 not be applied to preclude relief on direct appeal for unpre-served fundamental errors, Amendments to the Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure, 685 So.2d at 775, we have held that unpre-served sentencing errors-which are fundamental may be addressed for the first time on direct appeal. See Sanders v. State, 698 So.2d 377 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997).
Most prominent among the sentencing errors determined to be fundamental are those that result in "illegal sentences." We remedied an unpreserved sentencing error on direct appeal in Sanders because we concluded that it caused the resulting sentence to be illegal, and therefore amounted to fundamental error. We explained our holding as follows:
The error asserted by the appellant in the present case must be classified as fundamental. The sentence for sexual battery is in excess of the statutory maximum for the offense and is therefore "illegal." See King v. State, 681 So.2d 1136 (Fla.1996); Davis v. State, 661 So.2d 1193 (Fla.1995); State v. Callaway, 658 So.2d 983 (Fla.1995). An illegal sentence is regarded with such disdain by the law that it, unlike other trial court errors, may be challenged for the first time by way of collateral proceedings instituted even decades after such a sentence has been imposed. See Calla-way. The extraordinary provision made for remedying illegal sentences evidences the utmost importance of correcting such errors, even at the expense of legal principles that might preclude relief from trial court errors of less consequence. In light of this, illegal sentences necessarily constitute fundamental error, and may therefore be challenged for the first time on direct appeal.
It should also be recognized that the supreme court has held that an illegal sentence may be corrected "at any time." See Davis; Bedford v. State, 633 So.2d 13 (Fla.1994). In light of Sanders, and subsequent decisions in which we have applied its holding, the unpre-served sentencing error in the present case may be remedied in this direct appeal if the resulting sentence is illegal.
Davis, Callaway, and King specifically defined the term "illegal sentence," explaining that "an illegal sentence is one that exceeds the maximum period set forth by law for a particular offense without regard to the [sentencing] guidelines." And to further clarify this definition, King explained that a sentence is not illegal merely because it is unauthorized by statute or rule, and that a statutorily unauthorized sentence "is not an illegal sentence unless the total sentence imposed exceeds the statutory maximum for the particular offense at issue."
Middleton is an example of our adherence to the illegal sentence definition provided by Davis, Callaway, and King. Middleton was sentenced as a habitual felony offender to four years incarceration followed by one year of probation for the third degree felony of possession of cocaine. Although the habitual felony offender statute excluded this crime from habitual felony offender sentencing, we declined to vacate the sentence because Middleton had not preserved the issue for review in the trial court by an objection or motion under rule 3.800(b). Notwithstanding the fact that the sentence patently failed to comport with the statutory limitation, the illegal sentence exception to the preservation requirement did not apply under the King definition because the term of the sentence was within the five-year, non-habitual statutory maximum for a third degree felony.
Relying upon Middleton, the appellee asserts that the appellant's sentence in the present case cannot be corrected for the same reason that Middleton's sentence could not be corrected. Like Middleton, the appellant has a habitual felony offender sentence which is not authorized by statute but which is nevertheless within the non-habitual statutory maximum for her offense. See § 921.001(5), Fla. Stat. (1995); Floyd v. State, 707 So.2d 833 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998). The appellee's analysis is correct, but Middleton must now be called into question because the supreme court recently revisited its "illegal sentence" definition.
First, in Hopping v. State, 708 So.2d 263 (Fla.1998), the supreme court apparently ignored the requirement that a sentence must exceed the statutory maximum to be considered illegal in holding that "where it can be determined without an evidentiary hearing that a sentence has been unconstitutionally enhanced in violation of the double jeopardy clause, the sentence is illegal." Then, in Mancino, the supreme court announced that a sentence is illegal "by definition" when it "patently fails to comport with statutory or constitutional limitations." We are obligated to apply this' most recent definition in the present case.
As has been previously explained, the sentence in the present case clearly fails to comport with the statutory limitation of section 812.014. Under the new Mancino definition, it is therefore an illegal sentence which is remediable as fundamental error.
A divided fifth district recently held that there are no fundamental errors in the sentencing context. See Maddox v. State, 708 So.2d 617 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998). But the holding in Maddox cannot be reconciled with the opinion in Amendments to the Florida, Rules of Appellate Procedure, 685 So.2d at 775, in which the supreme court clearly indicated that its 1996 amendments to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800 and Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.140 were adopted in recognition of the legislature's prerogative to "reasonably condition the right to appeal upon the preservation of a prejudicial error or the assertion of a fundamental error." (Emphasis supplied). The construction of rule 9.140(d) applied in Maddox would obviously frustrate, rather than recognize, this legislative intent. For this reason, and because the supreme court (1) has specifically recognized fundamental error in the sentencing context in cases such as Wood v. State, 544 So.2d 1004 (Fla.1989), (2) has held that illegal sentences may be corrected at any time, and (3) has provided no clear indication that fundamental error now applies only to trial errors, we disagree with Maddox and certify conflict between Maddox and our decision in the present case.
The appellant's habitual felony offender sentence is vacated, and this ease is remanded for the appellant to be resenteneed.
BARFIELD, C.J., and WOLF, WEBSTER and DAVIS, JJ., concur.
ERVIN, J., concurs with written opinion.
JOANOS, J., dissents with written opinion in which MINER, KAHN and LAWRENCE, JJ., concur.