Cotto v. State
Annotate this CasePetitioner was convicted of aggravated assault with a firearm and sentenced as a prison releasee reoffender (PRR). Petitioner was also convicted of carrying a concealed firearm and possessing a firearm by a convicted felon and sentenced as a habitual felony offender (HFO). Petitioner was sentenced to a total of thirty-five years’ incarceration. The court of appeal affirmed Petitioner’s sentences. Petitioner subsequently filed a pro se motion for postconviction relief alleging that his thirty-five year sentence was illegal under Hale v. State, which held that sentences enhanced under the habitual violent felony offender provision of Fla. Stat. 775.084 cannot run consecutively to other sentences arising from the same criminal episode. The trial court denied Appellant’s motion for postconviction relief. The court of appeal affirmed, concluding that because the PRR statute imposes a mandatory minimum that is in accordance with, and not beyond, the statutory maximum, a PRR sentence is not an enhanced sentence, and a trial court may therefore impose an HFO sentence consecutive to a PRR sentence. The Supreme Court approved the court of appeal’s decision, holding that Hale does not prohibit a habitual offender sentence from being imposed consecutively to a PRR sentence.
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