Smith v. State

334 So.3d 377

Gerrel Marcus SMITH, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Case No 5D21-993

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.

Opinion filed February 25, 2022

Rachael E. Reese, of O'Brien Hatfield Reese, P.A., Tampa, for Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Kaylee D. Tatman, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Gerrel Smith appeals the summary denial of his motion to correct illegal sentence filed pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a). He raises several issues on appeal. We find merit in only one—that resentencing Smith after he completed his original sentences for four counts of aggravated assault violates the prohibition against double jeopardy.

In 2010, Smith was charged and convicted of a single count of aggravated battery with a firearm (Count I) and four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm (Counts II–V). The jury found he discharged a firearm during the commission of the aggravated assaults. The trial court sentenced Smith to twenty years of imprisonment on Count I and a three-year mandatory minimum term of imprisonment, crediting him 837 days of time served, on Counts II–V.

After sentencing, Smith filed his notice of appeal. Five months later, pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(b)(2), Smith filed a motion to correct sentencing error with respect to Count I, the aggravated battery count. Approximately two months later the State filed a motion pursuant to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) and argued that the sentences imposed with respect to Counts II–V, the four counts of aggravated assault, were illegal. This was the first time the State objected to Smith's sentences for the four counts of aggravated assault.

After hearing argument from both parties, the postconviction court found that the sentence for the aggravated battery count, as well as the sentence for each of the four aggravated assault counts, were illegal. The postconviction court vacated the sentences and resentenced Smith to fifteen years in the Department of Corrections, with a three-year mandatory minimum term on the aggravated battery count, and to twenty years in the Department of Corrections, with a twenty-year mandatory minimum term on each of the four counts of aggravated assault. The court ordered that all the sentences run concurrent with each other.

Smith timely appealed his new sentences for aggravated assault, arguing that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to grant the State's Rule 3.800(a) motion. Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) expressly forbids the State from filing such a motion when a direct appeal is pending. Agreeing with Smith, this Court vacated the corrected sentences on the four counts of aggravated assault and remanded the case so the State could file its motion in compliance with Rule 3.800(a), that is, file its motion after Smith's direct appeal was resolved. Smith v. State , 82 So. 3d 1185, 1186 (Fla. 5th DCA 2012).

On remand, and after Smith's direct appeal was resolved, the State filed an amended Rule 3.800(a) motion seeking the same relief: to correct the three-year mandatory minimum sentence for each of the four counts of aggravated assault. The postconviction court again granted the State's motion and resentenced Smith to twenty years in the Department of Corrections. But this time there was another problem: by the time the postconviction court corrected the sentencing error on the aggravated assault counts, Smith had already completed his sentence for each of the four counts of aggravated assault.¹

Again, Smith challenged the corrected sentence. Proceeding pro se, Smith filed a Rule 3.850 motion and alleged as his first claim that the corrected sentence on each count for aggravated assault—imposed after he completed the original sentences—violated double jeopardy. The postconviction court disagreed and reasoned that because Smith's sentence for each count of aggravated assault was illegal, the sentence could be corrected at any time, including after it had been completed.²

With the benefit of counsel, Smith appealed the postconviction court's denial of his Rule 3.850 motion but did not include in his grounds for reversal any double jeopardy argument. As a result, this Court has never considered Smith's current complaint that his corrected sentences for four counts of aggravated assault violate the prohibition against double jeopardy. We do so now.

The sentences originally imposed for each of the four counts of aggravated assault were illegal. Section 775.087(2)(a)(1), (2) and (3) do "not authorize a court to impose a lesser sentence than otherwise required by law." § 775.087(2)(b), Fla. Stat. (2010). Because the jury found that Smith discharged a firearm during the commission of the aggravated assaults, the sentence required by law was a twenty-year mandatory minimum sentence.³ See Allen v. State , 853 So. 2d 533, 536 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003) ; State v. Scanes , 973 So. 2d 659, 661 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008). Yet, Smith received only a three-year mandatory minimum term for each count of aggravated assault.

Typically, "[i]t does not offend double jeopardy principles to resentence a defendant to harsher terms when the original sentence was invalid." Allen , 853 So. 2d at 536. However, this Court previously held that when a defendant serves the entirety of his or her sentence, it violates the prohibition against double jeopardy to resentence the defendant. Stallings v. State , 182 So. 3d 786, 787 (Fla. 5th DCA 2015) ("Once a sentence has already been served, even if it is an illegal sentence or an invalid sentence, the trial court loses jurisdiction and violates the Double Jeopardy Clause by reasserting jurisdiction and resentencing the defendant to an increased sentence." (quoting Maybin v. State , 884 So. 2d 1174, 1175 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004) ; Sneed v. State , 749 So. 2d 545 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000) )).⁴ This is true even if the initial sentence was illegal. Id . ; accord Willingham v. State , 833 So. 2d 237, 238 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002) ("Where a sentence has already been served, even if it is an illegal sentence, the court lacks jurisdiction and would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause by resentencing the defendant to an increased sentence."); State v. Jimenez , 173 So. 3d 1020, 1025 (Fla. 3d DCA 2015) ("[O]nce a sentence has been fully satisfied, even if it is an illegal or invalid sentence, a trial court may not increase or amend the sentence, as this would violate a defendant's double jeopardy rights").⁵ Following our precedent in Stallings , we find that Smith had a legitimate expectation of finality in his original sentences for the four counts of aggravated assault.

This finding does not end our analysis, however. Because Smith raised the same issue in a prior motion that was denied by the postconviction court after it was fully litigated, the judicial doctrine of collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, applies, and we must now determine whether the application of a procedural bar would defeat the ends of justice. See State v. McBride , 848 So. 2d 287, 290 (Fla. 2003) (explaining that when a defendant raises an issue in a postconviction motion and is denied relief, but fails to appeal, he is collaterally estopped from raising the same issue in another Rule 3.800 motion, unless the manifest injustice exception applies).

Guiding...