McEachern v. State

Supreme Court of Florida

Decided November 20, 1997

Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1997-11-20

Relies on 700 So. 2d 1 - State v. McEachern

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1997-11-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 30 later decisions — most recently September 2013 · most notably 894 So. 2d 941 - State v. Florida (2005), 728 So. 2d 1165 - Rivera v. State (1998)

28 state decisions

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.

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SHAW, Justice.

¶1We have for review State v. McEachern, 700 So.2d 1 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997), wherein the court certified the following question:

IS A SENTENCE ENTIRELY SUSPENDED ON THE CONDITION THAT THE DEFENDANT SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE COMMUNITY CONTROL AN ILLEGAL SENTENCE AS CONSTI*866TUTING AN UNAUTHORIZED SENTENCING ALTERNATIVE WHICH MAY BE APPEALED BY THE STATE AND VACATED ON DIRECT APPEAL?

¶2We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. We quash McEachernbased on State v. Powell, No. 89,964, — So.2d -, 1997 WL 718233 (Fla. Nov. 20, 1997), wherein we held that as long as there exists a valid reason for a downward departure, a trial court may impose a true split sentence in which the entire period of incarceration is suspended.

¶3It is so ordered.

KOGAN, C.J., OVERTON, HARDING, WELLS and ANSTEAD, JJ., and GRIMES, Senior Justice, concur.