Title: Jones v. State
Citation: 639 So. 2d 28
Docket Number: 81881
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: July 7, 1994

639 So. 2d 28 (1994)
Hazel JONES, Petitioner,
v.
STATE of Florida, Respondent.
No. 81881.

Supreme Court of Florida.
July 7, 1994.
*29 Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Anthony Calvello, Asst. Public Defender, 15th Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, for petitioner.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Joan Fowler, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Bureau Chief, and Michelle A. Konig, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for respondent.
SHAW, Justice.
The Fourth District Court of Appeal has certified the following question as one of great public importance:
State v. Jones, 625 So. 2d 1224, 1226 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. We answer the certified question in the affirmative.
The facts, as found by the district court, are as follows:
Jones, 625 So. 2d  at 1225. The district court, citing Pope v. State, 561 So. 2d 554 (Fla. 1990), reversed the trial court and held that Ms. Jones must be resentenced within the guidelines or allowed to withdraw her plea of no contest. Id. at 1226. The court also expressed grave concern in sentencing Ms. Jones to a much harsher sentence solely because of an error that was "attributable to no conduct, action or inaction by the defendant" and certified the above question. Id. at 1225.
Our decision in Pope holds:
561 So. 2d  at 556. Seeing no reason to deviate from our previous decision, we hereby answer the certified question in the affirmative and reiterate that under Pope v. State, 561 So. 2d 554 (Fla. 1990), sentencing departures which lack contemporaneous written reasons for the departure must be remanded for resentencing within the guidelines. The defendant's fault, or lack of fault, in the sentencing process has no bearing on the Pope requirement. Our resolution of the certified question does not depart from Smith v. State, 598 So. 2d 1063 (Fla. 1992), in which we held that a departure sentence was valid when at the time of sentencing the judge stated his reasons for a departure and ordered the State to commit the reasons to writing, and the State failed to do so. The *30 facts in Smith differ entirely from those in this instance. This is not a case where the physical process of committing the reasons to writing is "nothing more than a ministerial act at the precise direction of the court, in the nature of specific dictation." 598 So. 2d  at 1067.
In the alternative, Ms. Jones claims that if her downward departure sentence is invalid she should be allowed to withdraw her plea of no contest.[1] We agree.
The record shows that when Ms. Jones entered her plea of no contest the following conversation ensued between the judge and her:
In light of the above colloquy, we conclude that Ms. Jones' plea was conditional and premised upon her option to withdraw the plea if the state appealed the sentence and won. Ms. Jones is granted thirty days from the date this decision becomes final to withdraw her plea of no contest, if she so wishes.
We approve the district court's decision and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
GRIMES, C.J., and OVERTON, KOGAN and HARDING, JJ., concur.
McDONALD, Senior Justice, dissents.
[1]  Our resolution of this issue renders Ms. Jones' ineffective assistance of counsel claim moot.