Opinion ID: 1784802
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: other courts' application of pearce

Text: Other courts have held that Pearce does not apply when the sentencing court on remand, after a habitual criminal enhancement is vacated, imposes the same or nearly the same sentence. [21] The Florida Court of Appeal in Thomas v. State [22] held that a sentencing court's increase in the maximum term was not more severe when the court imposed the same prison time after the appellate court had vacated a mandatory minimum sentence. In Thomas, the sentencing court originally sentenced the defendant to 40 years' imprisonment as a habitual violent offender with a 15-year mandatory minimum. After the appellate court vacated this sentence in a postconviction action, the sentencing court resentenced him as a habitual felony offender to a term of 50 years with no mandatory minimum. The court stated that it intended to have the defendant serve the same time. It determined that the new sentence would result in the same prison time because there was no longer a mandatory minimum term. The Florida Court of Appeal held that the defendant failed to show his new sentence was more severe or had been motivated by vindictiveness. [23]