Opinion
No. 5D12–1854.
2012-09-20
Kenneth WHITFIELD, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Kenneth Whitfield, Lowell, pro se. Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee and Douglas T. Squire, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.
Kenneth Whitfield, Lowell, pro se. Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee and Douglas T. Squire, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.
PER CURIAM.
Kenneth Whitfield appeals from the denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus, in which he challenges his current detention on a February 20, 1998, 30–year habitual violent felony offender (“HVFO”) sentence, imposed on a robbery charge. The trial court correctly denied the petition, and we affirm.
This sentence was imposed in Manatee County Circuit Court Case No. 97–1766–CF.
Whitfield seems to be confused by the fact that the trial court later imposed a 15–year sentence for a firearm charge in an unrelated case, and ordered that sentence to be served “concurrent and coterminous ” with other charges from that case, as well as sentences imposed in other cases—including the 30–year HVFO sentence. Whitfield's confusion is perhaps understandable, as the later 15–year sentence clearly should not have been imposed as coterminous with the longer 30–year sentence. See Moore v. Pearson, 789 So.2d 316, 319 (Fla.2001) (explaining that “a coterminous sentence is a sentencing decision in which a court exercises its discretion to mitigate a defendant's sentence” by ordering it to end simultaneously with another shorter sentence); Jefferson v. Florida Parole Com'n, 982 So.2d 743, 745 (Fla. 2nd DCA 2008) (explaining that it would be “incongruous” to designate a shorter sentence as coterminous with a longer sentence). As recognized by the Jefferson court, it makes no sense to order a shorter sentence to run coterminous with a longer sentence because the shorter sentence will in fact end first irrespective of the designation—which means that the two sentences will not end simultaneously.
This sentence was imposed in Manatee County Circuit Court Case No. 97–2911–CF.
A coterminous sentence is a sentence that runs concurrently with another sentence and is ordered to terminate simultaneously with the other sentence. See Madden v. State, 535 So.2d 636, 637 n. 1 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988).
Whitfield may also be suffering under the misimpression that by designating the 15–year sentence as coterminous with the earlier 30–year HVFO sentence, the trial court somehow modified and shortened the 30–year sentence. However, the trial court clearly did not purport or attempt to modify the HVFO sentence when sentencing in the later, unrelated case. Additionally, according to Whitfield's habeas petition, the coterminous 15–year sentence was imposed on December 11, 2000, well after the trial court would have lost jurisdiction to modify the 30–year HVFO sentence imposed in 1998. See, e.g., Colvin v. State, 63 So.3d 889 (Fla. 5th DCA 2011).
AFFIRMED.