Williams v. StateWilliams v. State
In this direct criminal appeal, appellant seeks review of habitual offender sentences imposed, pursuant to negotiated pleas, for two counts of armed kidnapping. He argues that, because those two offenses are life felonies, the habitual offender sentences are illegal. We reverse.
Apparently, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the trial court and appellant were all laboring under the erroneous belief that armed kidnapping is a first-degree felony punishable by a term of years not exceeding life when, in actuality, it is a life felony. See
However, the remedy is not, as appellant urges, that the case be remanded with directions that non-habitual offender sentences of like terms be imposed. These sentences were the result of a bargain which had been struck between the parties involving a number of other serious charges, in addition to the two counts of armed kidnapping. To allow appellant the relief he now requests would be to rewrite the agreement between the parties, to appellant‘s distinct benefit. Instead, as in Boatwright, we remand with directions that the trial court afford the state the opportunity to agree that only the habitual offender sentences for the two counts of armed kidnapping be vacated, while allowing the judgments to stand, and that appellant be resentenced according to the principles set forth in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969). Should the state decline this option, the judgments and sentences for all seven of the offenses to which appellant entered pleas are to be vacated, and the case is to proceed to trial.
REVERSED and REMANDED, with directions.
MINER, J., concurs.
BENTON, J., concurs and dissents with written opinion.
BENTON, Judge, concurring and dissenting.
Under the plea agreement, the defendant received seven concurrent habitual offender sentences. Six were for terms of thirty years and one was for a five-year term. On defendant‘s motion to correct sentence, without objection by the state, the original pronouncement was “corrected to the extent that the designation of the defendant as a habitual offender does not apply to the two counts of armed sexual battery.”
As grounds for the motion to correct sentence, the defendant had alleged: “At the
If a defendant performs his part of a plea bargain and begins service of a sentence, the prosecution cannot unilaterally insist on a return to the status quo ante. See Ricketts v. Adamson, 483 U.S. 1, 107 S.Ct. 2680, 97 L.Ed.2d 1 (1987) (trial after breach of plea agreement allowed only because “the State did not force the breach,” 483 U.S. at 11, 107 S.Ct. at 2686 and “respondent clearly appreciated and understood the consequences were he found to be in breach of the agreement.” At 12, 107 S.Ct. at 2686).
This appeal is no more a breach of the plea agreement than the motion to correct sentence was. The problem arises because the plea agreement, apparently in part the result of a mutual mistake of law, calls for illegal, as well as legal, sentences. A defendant is entitled to withdraw a plea induced by promises which the prosecution does not keep. Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971); Lee v. State, 501 So.2d 591 (Fla. 1987).
But the history of this case suggests that the trial court and parties alike will be able to reach agreement on remand with respect to the sentences for armed kidnapping. The decision in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969), which involved retrial and did not involve a plea agreement, is inapposite.
On remand, the parties are free to continue their efforts to reform the plea agreement in order to make it lawful, while preserving its essence. If the trial court, with the parties’ consent, reclassifies the sentences for armed kidnapping in the same manner as it reclassified the sentences for armed sexual battery, all seven sentences will be lawful and the apparent intention of the original plea agreement will be accomplished.