Court Opinion

ID: 9959623
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-12 14:03:16.057502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:24.346089
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
                          SECOND DISTRICT

                      GLEN LORENZO LAWRENCE,

                               Appellant,

                                   v.

                         STATE OF FLORIDA,

                               Appellee.

                            No. 2D23-2045

                             April 12, 2024

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Manatee County; Frederick P.
Mercurio, Judge.

Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Robert D. Rosen, Assistant
Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Alicia M. Winterkorn,
Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.

KHOUZAM, Judge.
     Glen Lorenzo Lawrence appeals the orders revoking his probation
in two case numbers and imposing sentences of 86.55 months in prison.
We affirm the revocation, but reverse the sentence and remand for
resentencing.
     On five occasions in 2018 and 2019, an undercover law
enforcement officer purchased from Mr. Lawrence crack cocaine weighing
approximately a tenth or twentieth of a gram. The State charged Mr.
Lawrence with four counts of sale or delivery of cocaine in case number
2019-CF-72 and one count of sale or delivery of cocaine in case number
2019-CF-2508. Mr. Lawrence entered guilty pleas to those charges, and
the trial court sentenced him to concurrent terms of eleven months and
twenty-nine days in jail followed by twenty-four months of drug offender
probation with the special conditions that he obtain drug and mental
health evaluations within thirty days of release and complete appropriate
treatment.
     Mr. Lawrence admitted to violating his probation on three
occasions, and each time, the trial court entered an order modifying his
probation. On August 15, 2022, the trial court modified Mr. Lawrence's
probation with a twelve-month extension subject to early termination
upon completion of the special condition that he submit to a mental
health evaluation.
     On August 28, 2023, Mr. Lawrence admitted to violating his
probation for a fourth time. He provided no excuse for his failure to
comply with the conditions of his probation but told the trial court that
family tragedy had affected his mental health condition. A probation
officer who had been assigned Mr. Lawrence's case for just a couple of
months recommended that the trial court terminate his probation
because "it seems like he does not want to comply with his conditions of
supervision as easy as reporting to the probation office." When Mr.
Lawrence's counsel asked the trial court to modify Mr. Lawrence's
probation to "allow my client to complete what was ordered in August of
last year," the trial court expressed frustration with Mr. Lawrence's

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failure to comply with the condition that would have terminated his
sentence. The court also stated its belief that the lowest permissible
prison sentences of 86.55 months were not appropriate under the
circumstances. It then explained:
     I'm at a loss for what it is I can do. Because if I modify and
     terminate his probation, I'm not sure that that's legal. If I
     revoke and terminate him, I don't know that I have any choice
     but to sentence him to a scoresheet sentence. He's already
     done [terms of eleven months and twenty-nine days in jail]
     once or twice over the course of these years since 2019. So
     while it's against my personal feeling that it's appropriate to
     send him to prison, I don't know if I have any legal choice but
     to do [so].
     So based upon the fact that at this point the recommendation
     of the Department, the recommendation of the State, and
     there being no legal reason not to, I'm going to revoke and
     terminate his probation and sentence him to the bottom of
     the guidelines, 86.550 months, in the Department of
     Corrections with credit for all time served. That'll be
     concurrent on each count in each case. And I'll order his
     court costs in each case, cost of prosecution to be paid in the
     form of judgments against any outstanding financial will all
     be reduced to judgement.
     Mr. Lawrence argues, and the State agrees, that resentencing is
warranted because the above statement indicates that the trial court may
not have understood its discretion under section 948.06(2)(a) and (b),
Florida Statutes (2023), to "impose any sentence which it might have
originally imposed." See Casey v. State, 50 So. 3d 782, 782–83 (Fla. 2d
DCA 2010) (holding that reconsideration of the appellant's sentences was
warranted where the trial court "appear[ed] to have believed" that it had
no discretion to impose a sentence other than the suspended prison term
upon [the appellant]'s violation of probation and did not recognize that it
also "could have continued, modified, or revoked the appellant's
probation"); Nadzo v. State, 24 So. 3d 690, 691–92 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009)

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(holding that "[t]he State properly concede[d] that the trial court was
under the misconception that it was required to impose the full term of
the suspended sentence originally imposed when Nadzo was placed on
probation," even though the trial court "was authorized to impose a
sentence less than the original sentence" and could have revoked,
modified, or continued Nadzo's probation).
     Accordingly, we reverse Mr. Lawrence's sentences and remand for
resentencing.
     Affirmed in part; reversed and remanded in part.

CASANUEVA and LABRIT, JJ., Concur.

Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.

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