State v. A. B.

¶1A.B., a juvenile, entered a plea of no contest to charges of possession of a firearm on school grounds and assault with a deadly weapon. The state timely appeals from the trial court’s subsequent withholding adjudication of delinquency. We have jurisdiction under section 985.234(l)(b)(8), Florida Statutes (1997).

¶2A.B. pled no contest to possession of a firearm on school grounds and assault with a deadly weapon. At disposition, the trial court withheld adjudication, sentenced him to five days of secure detention but credited him for time already served, and imposed other conditions with respect to community control. The state objected,to the withhold of adjudication. Noting that the probable cause affidavit revealed A.B. had taken the gun to school to kill another student, and that A.B. had two prior offenses which the state had handled nonjudicially, it unsuccessfully argued that section 790.22(9) mandated an adjudication of delinquency.

¶3The state argues that the trial court lacked discretion under section 790.22(9), Florida Statutes (1997)1 to withhold adjudication of delinquency in sentencing A.B. We disagree. Unlike this statute’s adult counterpart, section 775.087(2), Florida Statutes (1997), which provides that when any person is convicted of such crimes as aggravated assault2 and during the commission of the offense, such person possessed a firearm, “adjudication of guilt or imposition of a sentence shall not be suspended, deferred, or withheld,” id,3 section 790.22 does not contain any express restriction on the court’s discretion to withhold adjudication.

¶4In any event, we interpret the last sentence of section 790.22 as a direction to the court to credit minors with any time that they served prior to the formal disposition of their charges. As such, we hold that such *1264language did not prohibit the court’s exercise of discretion in withholding adjudication.

¶5AFFIRMED.