Court Opinion

ID: 9958923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-10 14:04:17.143168+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:12.682994
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                              FOURTH DISTRICT

                       KATHLEEN MAIER COELLO,
                              Appellant,

                                      v.

                           STATE OF FLORIDA,
                                Appellee.

                             No. 4D2022-1699

                               [April 10, 2024]

  Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, St.
Lucie County; Steven J. Levin, Judge; L.T. Case No. 562019CF000911A.

   Michael Robert Ufferman of Michael Ufferman Law Firm, P.A.,
Tallahassee, for appellant.

  Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Kimberly T. Acuña,
Senior Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

WARNER, J.

   Appellant challenges her sentence for DUI manslaughter involving two
victims. 1 She contends that the court modified her sentence after she
began serving it, a double jeopardy violation. We disagree. The trial court
merely corrected and clarified inconsistencies in the original sentencing
pronouncements. No double jeopardy violation occurred. We thus affirm.

   At the sentencing hearing, the trial court was less than clear about
what sentence was being imposed. At one point, the court sentenced
appellant on count three to 330 months with 48 months minimum
mandatory. On count four, which is the disputed sentence, the court
appears to have sentenced appellant to sixty months with forty-eight
months consecutive. However, at another point, the court said that the
sixty months would be concurrent with forty-eight months consecutive,
because the charges involved two victims. Yet at another point, when the
prosecutor asked if the total sentence was for 378 months, the court said

1 Count three was for DUI manslaughter/leaving the scene for one of the victims

and count four was for DUI manslaughter/leaving the scene for the other victim.
“no.” The court also imposed twenty years of probation on count four to
be consecutive. Following the sentencing hearing, appellant was taken to
jail and thus began to serve her sentence. The day after the hearing, and
before the written sentence was entered, appellant prematurely filed her
appeal. 2

   A few days later, the judge called counsel back and said that he was
not changing “anything,” announcing that on count four, appellant would
serve forty-eight months, mandatory minimum and consecutive to count
three, not a sixty-month sentence, with twenty years’ probation thereafter.
The court explained that the sentence was simpler this way with the forty-
eight-month mandatory minimum consecutive to count three, rather than
to have the sixty-month sentence on count four.

    Appellant moved to correct the sentence, claiming that the orally
pronounced sentence at the first sentencing hearing was for 330 months,
with 48 months minimum mandatory, for count three, and 60 months on
count four to run concurrent with count three. Thus, the modified
sentence violated double jeopardy. Because the court did not rule within
sixty days, the motion is deemed denied pursuant to Florida Rule of
Criminal Procedure 3.800(b)(2)(B). Appellant now challenges the sentence
in this appeal.

   “Once a sentence has been imposed and the person begins to serve the
sentence, that sentence may not be increased without running afoul of
double jeopardy principles.” Ashley v. State, 850 So. 2d 1265, 1267 (Fla.
2003). “To do so is a clear violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause, which
prohibits multiple punishment for the same offense.” Id. “[S]ubsequent
imposition of new conditions or terms to a sentence or order of probation
violates the constitutional protection against double jeopardy.” Id. at
1268. “An order of probation, like any other aspect of sentencing, ought

2 Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.140(3) states: “The defendant must file

the notice prescribed by rule 9.110(d) with the clerk of the lower tribunal at any
time between rendition of a final judgment and 30 days following rendition of a
written order imposing sentence.” Id. (emphasis supplied). No final judgment or
written order imposing sentence had been rendered when appellant filed her
appeal. Thus, contrary to appellant’s argument, the trial court did not lose
jurisdiction to render the revised and clarified sentence. See Florida Rule of
Appellate Procedure 9.110(l) (emphasis supplied) (“Except as provided in rule
9.020(h), if a notice of appeal is filed before rendition of a final order, the appeal
will be subject to dismissal as premature. However, the lower tribunal retains
jurisdiction to render a final order, and if a final order is rendered before dismissal
of the premature appeal, the premature notice of appeal will vest jurisdiction in
the court to review the final order.”).

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not to be a work in progress that the trial court can add to or subtract
from at will so long as he or she brings the defendant back in and informs
the defendant of the changes. To permit this would mean a lack of finality
. . . .” Id. (emphasis supplied) (quoting Justice v. State, 674 So. 2d 123,
126 (Fla. 1996)).

   In this case, however, the trial court’s pronouncements at the original
sentencing hearing were unclear and inconsistent. We do not agree with
appellant that the court clearly pronounced a sentence of 330 months with
48 minimum mandatory on count three, and 60 months concurrent on
count four. Instead, it appears to us, that the court always intended forty-
eight months on count four to be consecutive to count three, because there
were two manslaughter victims. The question was whether count four
would carry an entire sixty-month sentence, which the court may have
originally expected to be part concurrent and part consecutive. The court
ultimately imposed only a forty-eight-month mandatory minimum
consecutive sentence for count two.

    In Tory v. State, 686 So. 2d 689 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996), the trial court
made inconsistent statements at the defendant’s sentencing, and on
appeal, the State and the defendant disagreed on the sentence. Id. at 691.
To resolve the conflict, we noted, “given appellant’s differing interpretation
as to the trial court’s intention, the oral pronouncement is ambiguous and
does not provide a guide in which to reconcile the oral pronouncement
with the written order.” Id. We then remanded the case for clarification
of the sentence, holding that “[w]here the record demonstrates that during
the oral pronouncement of sentence, the trial judge made inconsistent
statements, the matter must be remanded to the trial court to clarify the
sentence imposed and to enter such corrected sentencing orders as may
be appropriate.” Id.; see also Newton v. State, 603 So. 2d 558, 562 (Fla.
4th DCA 1992) (“[W]e conclude that the trial court made inconsistent
statements regarding its intent to impose consecutive or concurrent
sentences. On the authority of Gates v. State, 535 So. 2d 359 (Fla. 4th
DCA 1989), we remand this cause to the trial court with directions to
clarify the sentences imposed and to enter such corrected sentencing
orders as may be appropriate.”).

    Here, the trial court originally made inconsistent statements as to
whether the sentence for count four was to be consecutive or concurrent
with count three. The court then corrected the sentence and confirmed
that count four’s sentence was consecutive to count three’s sentence, and
actually reduced count four’s sentence to only the mandatory minimum.
If the trial court had not clarified the sentence, we would have reversed

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based upon Tory. However, the court clarified the sentence, and thus no
remand is necessary to establish the sentence.

                                 Conclusion

   After conducting a confusing sentencing hearing, during which the
court made inconsistent statements as to the sentence being imposed, the
court properly clarified the sentence at the second hearing. See Tory, 686
So. 2d at 691. No double jeopardy violation occurred. We affirm.

   Affirmed.

LEVINE and ARTAU, JJ., concur.

                           *         *        *

   Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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