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471 So. 2d 195

471 So.2d 195

10 Fla.L.Weekly 1533

Docket No. 84-2028.

Lee v. State

Craig LEE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

District Court of Appeal of Florida

Decided June 19, 1985.

District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1985-06-19

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“"This is an appeal from a sentence entered upon a conditional plea agreement approved by the court. We reverse and remand with directions that the appellant be sentenced in accord with the plea agreement previously entered, without consideration as to the elements of the agreement pertaining to appellant's failure to timely appear for sentencing or to his arrest pending sentence. "We find no evidence to support a finding that the appellant willfully failed to appear for his sentencing hearing or that he committed another crime while on personal recognizance release pending sentencing. To the contrary, the record reflects only evidence of an accidental car breakdown as the cause of appellant's late appearance for sentencing, and a voluntary dismissal by the state of the charges for which he was arrested and that he claimed arose out of a misunderstanding with his grandfather. "In addition, we question, but do not decide, whether a substantial number of years may constitutionally be added to a defendant's sentence to penalize him for being arrested or upon a finding that there was probable cause for such arrest. We caution trial courts to avoid plea agreements of this nature."”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 501 So. 2d 158 - Johnson v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1985-06-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently February 2012

14 state decisions

601985199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Thomas F. Ball, III, Asst. Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

¶2Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Marlyn J. Altman, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellee.

¶3PER CURIAM.

¶4This is an appeal from a sentence entered upon a conditional plea agreement approved by the court. We reverse and remand with directions that the appellant be sentenced in accord with the plea agreement previously entered, without consideration as to the elements of the agreement pertaining to appellant's failure to timely appear for sentencing or to his arrest pending sentencing.

¶5We find no evidence to support a finding that the appellant willfully failed to appear for his sentencing hearing or that he committed another crime while on personal recognizance release pending sentencing. To the contrary, the record reflects only evidence of an accidental car breakdown as the cause of appellant's late appearance for sentencing, and a voluntary dismissal by the state of the charges for which he was arrested and that he claimed arose out of a misunderstanding with his grandfather.

¶6In addition, we question, but do not decide, whether a substantial number of *196 years may constitutionally be added to a defendant's sentence to penalize him for being arrested or upon a finding that there was probable cause for such arrest. We caution trial courts to avoid plea agreements of this nature.

¶7ANSTEAD, C.J., and DELL and WALDEN, JJ., concur.

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