Opinion ID: 1597926
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The District Courts

Text: The Florida district courts disagree about whether a defendant's nolo contendere plea may constitute a waiver of a defective charging document that fails to allege the proper grounds for sentence enhancement pursuant to section 775.087(2), Florida Statutes. In Jackson, the defendant pled no contest to eight counts, one of which was robbery with a deadly weapon, a firearm. The defendant claimed that his plea to that felony was improperly reclassified under section 775.087(2)(a)3, Florida Statutes (1999), because the information did not allege that he discharged a firearm or inflicted death or great bodily harm. See 852 So.2d at 942-44. The information only charged that the defendant carried a firearm. See id. at 944. The Fourth District concluded that an allegation of carrying a firearm cannot sustain a sentence enhancement under section 775.087(2)(a)3; therefore, the defendant's sentence could not stand. See id. The district court held that the defendant did not waive any challenge to the sentence by way of his no contest plea. See id. The court reasoned that even though Jackson and his counsel were under a mistaken belief that he was pleading to a charge that carried a twenty-five-year mandatory minimum sentence that fact does not make the sentence legal where the information charged a crime with only a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence. See id. (citing Leavitt v. State, 810 So.2d 1032 (Fla.1st DCA 2002); Vickers v. State, 630 So.2d 1229 (Fla.2d DCA 1994)). The First District Court of Appeal held similarly in Mobley v. State, 939 So.2d 213 (Fla.1st DCA 2006). Mobley entered a plea of guilty to two counts of armed robbery pursuant to a plea agreement. The plea agreement called for concurrent sentences of twenty-five years' imprisonment with twenty-year mandatory minimum terms for discharging a firearm. See id. at 213. The defendant contended that his twenty-year mandatory minimum sentence was illegal because the information did not charge him with discharging a firearm under section 775.087(2)(a)2, Florida Statutes (2002). The information charged the defendant with possession of a firearm, which carried a mandatory minimum term of only ten years' imprisonment under section 775.087(2)(a)1. See id. The First District agreed, holding that because the defendant was only charged with possessing a firearm he could not be sentenced for discharging a firearm. See id. at 214 (citing Jackson, 852 So.2d at 944; Gibbs v. State, 623 So.2d 551, 555 (Fla.4th DCA 1993)). The district court concluded that the grounds for enhancement of a sentence under section 775.087(2) must be charged in the information. See id. (citing Jackson, 852 So.2d 941; Gibbs, 623 So.2d 551). The court noted that the mere fact that the defendant agreed to the twenty-year mandatory minimum sentence was irrelevant. See id. (citing Leavitt, 810 So.2d 1032). In contrast to the First and Fourth Districts, in Bradley, the case that is now before this Court, the Fifth District held that Bradley's explicit plea to discharge of a firearm during the commission of a robbery constituted a waiver of the missing discharge element. See 971 So.2d at 960. The district court reasoned that even though the information failed to charge the discharge of a firearm element, the record demonstrates that Bradley was specifically advised of what offense he was pleading to under section 775.087(2) and that he was exposing himself to a twenty-year mandatory minimum sentence required for discharge of a firearm. See id. at 961. Additionally, the district court found that the plea proceeding reflected that Bradley was sufficiently put on notice that he was subject to the twenty-year mandatory minimum sentence due to his discharge of a firearm during the robbery. See id. The Fifth District disagreed with the Jackson opinion because it found that the Fourth District placed a premium on form at the expense of substance and the defendant in Jackson could not credibly argue that he was not aware of his plea agreement terms. See Bradley, 971 So.2d at 961.