519 So. 2d 1105 | Fla. Dist. Ct. App. | 1988
We reverse the ten-year sentence of confinement imposed upon the defendant and remand the case to the trial court for the imposition of a sentence within the recommended guideline range of 4-V2 to 5-V2 years. The trial court’s stated reasons for its upward departure from the sentencing guidelines were that (1) the defendant has an extensive record of “arrests and convictions as a juvenile offender ... not calculated in the scoresheet,” (2) the defendant committed crimes “shortly after being released from incarceration,” and (3) the greater sentence is “necessary to protect the public from [the defendant’s] continuing crimes.”
First, as the State with commendable candor concedes, there is no record support for the trial court’s finding that the defendant had an extensive unscored record of juvenile convictions or that he committed crimes “shortly after being released from incarceration.” The record reflects only a single prior juvenile conviction some four and one-half years earlier, which does not constitute a clear and convincing reason for departure.
Reversed and remanded.
. Ironically, had the juvenile burglary conviction occurred within three years of the sentencing and thus been scored as a prior third-degree felony, the presumptive guideline sentence would have been 5-½ to 7 years. But because the single juvenile conviction was more remote in time, the trial court believed itself empowered to impose a still longer sentence.