Opinion ID: 1727284
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Impact on Length of Incarceration

Text: We have pending for our review the district courts' decisions in Seccia v. State, 720 So.2d 580 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998), review granted, 727 So.2d 910 (Fla.1999) (Case No. 94,138), and Latiif v. State, 711 So.2d 241 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998), review granted, 725 So.2d 1108 (Fla.1998) (Case No. 93,385), in which the defendants claim that the trial court erred in sentencing them pursuant to an erroneous sentencing scoresheet. We have previously required that defendants contemporaneously object to alleged sentencing errors in the scoresheet if the error is based upon disputed factual matters. See Montague, 682 So.2d at 1085; Dailey v. State, 488 So.2d 532, 534 (Fla. 1986). Even in those cases involving scoresheet errors apparent from the record, we have previously held that it does not necessarily follow that all cases involving scoresheet errors must be automatically reversed for resentencing. State v. Mackey, 719 So.2d 284, 284 (Fla.1998). However it is undoubtedly important for the trial court to have the benefit of a properly calculated scoresheet when making a sentencing decision. Id. Thus, in assessing whether a scoresheet error that appears on the face of the record constitutes fundamental error, the appellate courts should consider the qualitative effect of the error on the sentencing process and whether the error was likely to cause a quantitative effect on the defendant's sentence. If this cannot be determined readily on appeal, the scoresheet errors are more appropriately addressed in the trial court. On appeal to this Court, the parties have not adequately briefed the merits of the actual alleged sentencing errors in Seccia and Latiif. Accordingly, by separate opinions we will remand these cases to the district courts for proceedings consistent with this opinion. We further note that district courts have addressed sentencing errors that could significantly impact a defendant's length of incarceration. Although the Fourth District first stated in Hyden, 715 So.2d at 963 n. 1, that the only unpreserved errors it would correct were sentences in excess of the statutory maximum, in a subsequent opinion the Fourth District found the erroneous imposition of a minimum mandatory sentence to constitute fundamental error because of its inherent potential of causing or requiring `a defendant to be incarcerated... for a greater length of time than provided by law in the absence of ... [a] sentencing error.' Powell v. State, 719 So.2d 963, 964 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998) (quoting Porter v. State, 702 So.2d 257 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997)) (alterations in original). Correction of these errors that are patent and serious, and therefore fundamental, at their earliest opportunity comports with the interests of both the State and the defendant in not forcing an individual defendant to serve a sentence longer than authorized by law. However, we do not recede from our prior case law allowing defendants to agree through a plea bargain to a sentence not specifically authorized by statute or rule as long as the sentence does not exceed the statutory maximum. See, e.g., King, 681 So.2d at 1140; Quarterman v. State, 527 So.2d 1380, 1382 (Fla.1988); Williams, 500 So.2d at 503.