Court Opinion

ID: 9952654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-20 15:03:36.362537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:42:08.875159
License: Public Domain

FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                 STATE OF FLORIDA
                  _____________________________

                         No. 1D2022-3570
                  _____________________________

MICHAEL ANDREW BAKER,

    Appellant,

    v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

    Appellee.
                  _____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Okaloosa County.
Mary Polson, Judge.

                          March 20, 2024

PER CURIAM.

     We dismiss Appellant’s challenge of the trial court’s decision
not to downward depart. See Wilson v. State, 306 So. 3d 1267, 1273
(Fla. 1st DCA 2020) (holding that appellate review of the trial
court’s denial of a downward departure sentence is only
appropriate when the trial court “misapprehends its discretion to
depart or refuses to exercise that discretion as a matter of policy”).

    Additionally, we affirm Appellant’s unpreserved claim that he
should have been credited with time served for time spent on bail
subject to electronic monitoring. See Jackson v. State, 983 So. 2d
562, 569 (Fla. 2008) (noting that “for sentencing errors, to raise
even fundamental error on appeal, defendants must first file a
motion under rule 3.800(b)”).
OSTERHAUS, C.J., and LEWIS, J., concur; TANENBAUM, J., concurs
in part and dissents in part with opinion.

                  _____________________________

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

TANENBAUM, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part.

      Before this court is an appeal from a sentencing order, which
is a final order. We have appellate jurisdiction because the Florida
Constitution says so. See Art. V, § 4(b)(1), Fla. Const. (“District
courts of appeal shall have jurisdiction to hear appeals, that may
be taken as a matter of right, from final judgments or orders of
trial courts. . . .”). Despite the disposition in Wilson, it makes no
sense to “dismiss” an argument on appeal, or the appeal itself, if
our jurisdiction properly has been invoked by the filing of a timely
notice of appeal regarding a final sentencing order.

     In this case, the defendant, who was forty-eight years old at
the time of the offense, pleaded no contest to the charge of having
sex with the sixteen-year-old daughter of his best friends. The
defendant and the victim apparently were under the influence of
alcohol and possibly marijuana. The plea agreement the defendant
had with the State called for a sentencing cap of ten years’
imprisonment on the second-degree felony. His sentencing
scoresheet put his lowest permissible sentence at sixty-six months.
The transcript of the sentencing hearing amply demonstrates that,
in the light of the evidence presented, the trial court at no point
was inclined to show the defendant leniency. The lowest
permissible sentence, let alone a departure below, was not on the
table. The trial court noted the significant age difference between
the defendant and the victim, the position of trust that the
defendant held with respect to the victim, and the emotional and
psychological damage that the defendant has caused the victim.

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     The trial court was well within its prerogative, based on the
record before it, to impose a sentence at the cap. Section
921.0026(1), Florida Statutes, prohibits a trial court from imposing
a sentence below the lowest permissible sentence calculated based
on sentencing points “unless there are circumstances or factors
that reasonably justify the downward departure.” The defendant
argues that there were two statutorily enumerated factors to
support a departure, and the trial court found that there was
evidence demonstrating one of them. Even though the trial court
recognized it had the ability to depart under just the one factor, it
nevertheless imposed the maximum sentence under the plea
agreement. Put simply, the trial court was never seriously inclined
to impose a sentence at the low end of the sentencing range
presented by the plea agreement, regardless of whether it could
depart. The defendant’s argument that the trial court erred in
declining to impose a departure sentence based on the other factor
urged by him, in turn, is of no moment here.

     We have the authority to consider the defendant’s appeal,
including both of his arguments for vacating the sentence. His
arguments simply fail to pass legal muster under the standards of
review applicable to the issues he raises. I would affirm the
sentencing order in full.

                  _____________________________

Robert L. Sirianni, Jr. of Brownstone, P.A., Winter Park, for
Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Heather Flanagan Ross,
Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

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