Court Opinion

ID: 9901195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-21 16:04:23.019998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:29.788505
License: Public Domain

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                 _____________________________

                       Case No. 5D23-811
                  LT Case No. 2020-CF-000284
                 _____________________________

MICHAEL KEITH BOWEN,

    Appellant,

    v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

    Appellee.
                 _____________________________

3.801 Appeal from the Circuit Court for Nassau County.
James H. Daniel, Judge.

Michael Keith Bowen, Sanderson, pro se.

No Appearance for Appellee.

                      November 21, 2023

LAMBERT, J.

     Michael Keith Bowen timely appeals the circuit court’s order
summarily denying his Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.801
motion for the correction of jail credit. The judgment entered by
the court and attached to the denial order sentenced Bowen to
serve eighteen months in prison, to be served concurrently with a
sentence Bowen was serving out of Duval County. Bowen was also
awarded sixty-seven days of jail credit. In denying Bowen’s
motion, the court explained that it declined to exercise its
discretion to modify the sentence to which Bowen voluntarily
agreed. For the following reasons, we vacate the order and remand
for further proceedings.

     Rule 3.801(a) provides that a court may correct a final
sentence that fails to allow a defendant credit for all of the time he
or she spent in the county jail before sentencing. Pertinent here,
Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(f) is incorporated into
rule 3.801 proceedings. See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.801(e). Under rule
3.850(f)(5), when a summary denial is based on the records in the
case, a copy of that portion of the files and records that shows that
the defendant is entitled to no relief shall be attached to the final
order.

    The circuit court attached to its denial order a copy of the
written plea agreement entered into by Bowen and the State
where, in exchange for an eighteen-month prison sentence, Bowen
admitted to violating his probation. There is nothing, however,
contained in the plea agreement mentioning jail credit, let alone
that Bowen waived entitlement to the additional jail credit
described in his rule 3.801 motion.

     A defendant may waive entitlement to jail credit when
entering a plea; however, “the record must demonstrate a clear and
knowing waiver of jail credit in order to refute a later claim for
additional credit.” Johnson v. State, 304 So. 3d 392, 393 (Fla. 1st
DCA 2020) (quoting Cary v. State, 997 So. 2d 423, 424 (Fla. 1st
DCA 2008)); see also Lundy v. State, 257 So. 3d 566, 566 (Fla. 4th
DCA 2018) (holding that “a jail credit waiver must be specific,
voluntary, and clear from the face of the record”). As no transcript
from the change of plea hearing is attached to the order, we have
no present way of knowing whether Bowen specifically waived his
entitlement to any additional jail credit at the hearing. Nor does
the circuit court’s reasoning in its order sufficiently explain or
refute why Bowen is not entitled to the claimed additional jail
credit.

     However, it appears that Bowen’s motion for correction of jail
credit was insufficiently pleaded. Rule 3.801(c)(1)–(5) enumerates
the information to be set forth in the motion. Here, Bowen did not
allege whether he had waived any county jail credit at the time of
sentencing and, if so, the number of days waived. See Fla. R. Crim.

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P. 3.801(c)(5). Bowen also mentioned in his motion that he was
sentenced in a separate case from Duval County but did not
provide the case number or information as to whether any other
criminal charges were pending during the time for which he
contended that he was not properly awarded credit. See Fla. R.
Crim. P. 3.801(c)(4). When a rule 3.801 motion is legally
insufficient, the postconviction court is to provide the defendant
with sixty days in which to amend the motion, as provided in rule
3.850(f)(2) that is incorporated into rule 3.801.

     Accordingly, we vacate the order under review with directions
to the circuit court to provide Bowen sixty days to amend his
motion, if he can do so in good faith. If Bowen timely files a
sufficiently pleaded amended motion, the court must thereafter
either attach records to its denial order that conclusively show that
Bowen is not entitled to any additional jail credit or, if the claim
cannot be so refuted by the records, hold an evidentiary hearing. 1

    ORDER VACATED; REMANDED with directions.

KILBANE and PRATT, JJ., concur.

                  _____________________________

    Not final until disposition of any timely and
    authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
    9.331.
               _____________________________

    1 Because Bowen may soon be released from prison regarding

this case, we direct the circuit court to expedite the resolution of
any amended motion filed.

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