NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DISPOSED OF. IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA THIRD DISTRICT JANUARY TERM, A.D. 2005 DARIAN WILLIAMS, Appellant, vs. THE STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee. ** ** ** ** ** ** Opinion filed February 9, 2005. An Appeal under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.141(b) (2) from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Scott M. Bernstein, Judge. Darian Williams, in proper person. Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, for appellee. Before COPE, WELLS and SHEPHERD, JJ. PER CURIAM. Darian correct Williams appeals an order denying Rule his of motion to LOWER TRIBUNAL NO. 98-2701 CASE NO. 3D04-2341
illegal
sentence
under
Florida
Criminal
Procedure 3.800(a).
We affirm.
Defendant-appellant
Williams
argues
that
he
does
not
qualify as a habitual violent felony offender (“HVFO”) because all of his prior felony adjudications were felonies for which he was sentenced on the same day. He argues that under a Second
District decision, Rutherford v. State, 820 So. 2d 407 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002), his prior felonies had to be sentenced on two or more different days in order to qualify him for HVFO sentencing. Rutherford decision is apparently wrongly decided. As the Second District has explained in another of its decisions, “A defendant needs only one qualifying prior The
conviction in order to be sentenced as a habitual violent felony offender.” Hall v. State, 821 So. 2d 1154 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002) (citation omitted); see Weford v. State, 784 So. 2d 1222, 1223 (Fla. 3d DCA 2001); Daniels v. State, 634 So. 2d 187, 193 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994). Since only one qualifying felony is needed for an
HVFO adjudication, it does not matter if the qualifying felony was sentenced together with, or separate from, other qualifying felonies. In the present case the defendant’s motion indicates that he has at least one prior felony which qualifies him as an HVFO. It follows that the denial of the motion to correct illegal sentence in this case was correct. Affirmed.
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