Summary
explaining that when the trial court's oral pronouncement of sentence and the written sentencing documents conflict, "[t]he error in the written documents constitutes a scrivener's error that must be corrected so that the written documents comport with the sentence orally imposed"
Summary of this case from Abraham v. StateOpinion
Case No. 2D18-4980
03-06-2020
Zaquan Rakheem BRYANT, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Carly J. Robbins-Gilbert, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Carly J. Robbins-Gilbert, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
VILLANTI, Judge.
In this appeal with briefing submitted pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967), Zaquan Rakheem Bryant seeks review of his convictions and sentences arising out of multiple offenses. We affirm the judgment without further comment. We also affirm the sentences imposed by the trial court, but we remand for correction of a scrivener's error in the sentencing documents.
Bryant entered an open no contest plea to multiple charges arising from an incident in which he was stopped by police while driving a stolen car. Based on the charges to which he pleaded and his prior record, he scored 27.2 points on his Criminal Punishment Code scoresheet, which entitled him to any nonstate prison sanction. Bryant requested that adjudication be withheld and that he not be sentenced as a youthful offender. The reason for this seemingly odd request was that Bryant had another case pending and defense counsel anticipated that Bryant would score prison time on that case; therefore, Bryant wanted to "save" his youthful offender sentencing status for the other case. See § 958.04(1)(c), Fla. Stat. (2018) (permitting youthful offender sentencing only if the defendant "has not previously been classified as a youthful offender under ... this act"). The State requested that the trial court both adjudicate Bryant and sentence him as a youthful offender. After much discussion among the State, Bryant, and the trial court, the trial court stated that it would grant the State's request to adjudicate Bryant but it would also grant Bryant's request that he not be sentenced as a youthful offender. Specifically, the court stated:
Youthful offender sentencing is available, on a one-time basis and subject to a number of conditions, to juveniles whose cases are transferred to adult court and to offenders whose crimes were committed when they were over the age of 18 but before they turned 21 years of age. See § 958.04(1), Fla. Stat. (2018).
The Court is going to—and I'll make a record of this just in case it is helpful. I'm going to adjudicate him guilty. I'm not doing it as a youthful offender, so he'll still have his ability to be sentenced as a youthful offender in the future.
However, contrary to the trial court's oral pronouncement of the sentence, the written sentencing documents state that Bryant was sentenced as a youthful offender.
It is clear from the record before this court that the youthful offender classification on Bryant's written sentencing documents constitutes a scrivener's error because the trial court expressly did not sentence Bryant as a youth offender. When a conflict exists between the trial court's oral pronouncement of sentence and the written sentencing documents, the oral pronouncement controls. See Williams v. State, 957 So. 2d 600, 603 (Fla. 2007) ("[A] court's oral pronouncement of a sentence controls over the written sentencing document."). The error in the written documents constitutes a scrivener's error that must be corrected so that the written documents comport with the sentence orally imposed. See, e.g., Ashley v. State, 850 So. 2d 1265, 1268 n.3 (Fla. 2003) ("The term scrivener's error refers to a mistake in the written sentence that is at variance with the oral pronouncement of sentence." (quoting Amendments to Fla. Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.111(e) & 3.800 , 761 So. 2d 1015, 1023 (Fla. 2000) )); Devlin v. State, 224 So. 3d 803, 804 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017) (affirming Devlin's convictions and sentences but remanding for correction of a scrivener's error when the oral pronouncement of sentence was for time served but the written sentencing documents reflected a ten-year prison sentence); Rivera v. State, 117 So. 3d 449, 449-50 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013) (affirming the revocation of probation and the sentence imposed but remanding for correction of a scrivener's error when the written sentencing documents clearly conflicted with the oral pronouncement of sentence from the trial court).
In this case, as we did in Devlin and Rivera, we affirm the orally imposed sentences and remand for the trial court to correct the scrivener's error in the written sentencing documents. Bryant need not be present when this correction is made. See Devlin, 224 So. 3d at 804 (holding that the defendant need not be present when a scrivener's error in the sentencing documents is corrected).
Affirmed but remanded with instructions.
BLACK and ROTHSTEIN-YOUAKIM, JJ., Concur.