Williams v. State
The First DCA held that a trial court's same-day correction of a misspoken VOP sentence (fifteen months instead of the guideline-mandated 45.15 months, due to misreading the scoresheet) did not violate double jeopardy because the defendant had no legitimate expectation of finality in the erroneous, unlawful downward-departure sentence. The court affirmed the corrected 45.15-month sentences imposed after the trial court recalled the case during a lunch recess to fix its scoresheet-reading error.
Key facts
- Williams was convicted and received a violation of probation (VOP) sentence that the trial court orally pronounced as fifteen months, but this sentence resulted from the judge misreading the sentencing scoresheet.
- The trial court discovered its scoresheet-reading error during a lunch recess the same day and recalled the case to correct the sentence to the guideline-mandated 45.15 months.
- +2 more key facts with a free trial
Why it matters
This opinion gives prosecutors and trial courts a clear basis to correct scoresheet-reading errors in VOP resentencing without running afoul of double jeopardy, so long as the correction occurs promptly and the record… — full analysis with a trial
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