Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

476 So. 2d 165

476 So.2d 165

10 Fla.L.Weekly 479

Docket No. 66163.

State v. Carney

STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Timothy Lee CARNEY, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Florida

Decided August 29, 1985.

Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1985-08-29

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“When a departure sentence is grounded on both permissible and impermissible reasons, the sentence should be reversed and the case remanded for resentencing unless the state is able to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the absence of the impermissible reason(s) would not have affected the departure sentence.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including 478 So. 2d 1071 - Von Carter v. State, 482 So. 2d 346 - Wade v. State

Relies on 476 So. 2d 158 - Albritton v. State · 476 So. 2d 161 - State v. Young · 458 So. 2d 13 - Carney v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1985-08-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 112 later decisions — most recently May 2019 · most notably 515 So. 2d 161 - Carawan v. State (1987), 761 So. 2d 1055 - Freeman v. State (2000)

1 federal appellate · 107 state decisions

6301985199020002010decided

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 →

¶1Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Thomas H. Bateman, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for petitioner.

¶2Michael E. Allen, Public Defender, and Paula S. Saunders, Asst. Public Defender, Tallahassee, for respondent.

¶3SHAW, Justice.

¶4This cause is before us based on a certified question of great public importance. Carney v. State,458 So.2d 13 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.

¶5The district court below addressed the question of appellate review of departures from sentencing guidelines where a trial court relies on both permissible and impermissible reasons for the departure. Applying a harmless error analysis, the court concluded that it was unable to determine whether elimination of the impermissible reasons would have affected the departure sentence. Accordingly, the court reversed the sentence, remanded for resentencing, and certified as a question of great public importance the same question certified in Young v. State,455 So.2d 551 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984).

¶6We addressed the broad question of appellate review of departures from sentencing guidelines in Albritton v. State,476 So.2d 158 (Fla. 1985), and answered the certified question in State v. Young,476 So.2d 161 (Fla. 1985). Although the district court did not have the benefit of these decisions, its reasoning and conclusion largely parallel our own: "When a departure sentence is grounded on both permissible and impermissible reasons, the sentence should be reversed and the case remanded for resentencing unless the state is able to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the absence of the impermissible reason(s) would not have affected the departure sentence." Young,476 So.2d 161, 162, (Fla. 1985). We approve the decision below.

¶7It is so ordered.

¶8BOYD, C.J., and OVERTON, ALDERMAN, McDONALD and EHRLICH, JJ., concur.

¶9ADKINS, J., concurs in result only.

/476/so2d/165 · .json · Public domain