BOBBY BIGHAM
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
A defendant convicted of drug trafficking before a statutory amendment reducing the mandatory minimum sentence cannot benefit from that amendment because the Florida Constitution's Savings Clause requires the statute in effect at the time of the offense to govern the sentence.
[1] A motion to correct an illegal sentence under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a) may be brought at any time.
[2] The Florida Constitution's Savings Clause mandates that the statute in effect at the time of the crime governs the punishment an offender receives.
Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“Repeal or amendment of a criminal statute shall not affect prosecution or punishment for any crime previously committed.”
Florida Constitution, Article X, Section 9 (Savings Clause)
Bigham committed trafficking in hydrocodone in 2012 when the offense carried a 15-year mandatory minimum under section 893.135(1)(c)1.b. In 2014, the …
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Criminal Sentencing cases and more on FLexlaw
FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
STATE OF FLORIDA _____________________________
No. 1D17-2521 _____________________________
BOBBY BIGHAM,
Appellant,
v. STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
_____________________________
On appeal from the Circuit Court for Duval County. Linda F. McCallum, Judge.
February 23, 2018 WINOKUR, J.
The appellant, Bobby Bigham, appeals from an order denying his motion brought under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800.* For the reasons discussed below, we affirm.
* Bigham’s motion was entitled “Motion to Correct Sentencing Error” and cited rule 3.800(b). However, motions under rule 3.800(b) must be made prior to appeal or pending appeal, whereas Bigham’s motion was filed almost three years after his appeal was concluded. The court below did not address this apparent error. It appears that the court below considered Bigham’s motion to have been brought under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a), which allows a court, “at any time,”
In Bigham’s motion, he argued that he was improperly charged with trafficking in hydrocodone (14 grams or more, but less than 28 grams) pursuant to section 893.135(1)(c)1.b., Florida Statutes. He alleged that this subsection pertains to hydromorphone and not hydrocodone, and the error resulted in the imposition of a fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence rather than the three-year mandatory minimum sentence required by law.
In 2012, when Bigham committed his offense, trafficking in hydrocodone, as well as trafficking in hydromorphone (among other controlled substances), was prohibited by section 893.135(1)(c)1. If the quantity involved was 14 grams or more, but less than 28 grams, the offense was punishable by a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence. § 893.135(1)(c)1.b., Fla. Stat. (2012).
In 2014, the Legislature amended section 893.135(1)(c) to move the provision prohibiting trafficking in hydrocodone to its own subparagraph (section 893.135(1)(c)2.) and reduce the applicable mandatory minimum to three years imprisonment. See Ch. 2014-176, § 1, at 2388, Laws of Fla. That amendment became effective on July 1, 2014. Ch. 2014-176, § 5, at 2413, Laws of Fla. Trafficking in hydromorphone remained in subparagraph (1)(c)1., and still carries a fifteen-year minimum mandatory sentence. Referring to the current version of the statute, Bigham concludes that he must have been improperly sentenced for trafficking in hydromorphone, because hydrocodone is in a different part of the statute, and carries only a three-year minimum mandatory sentence.
The Florida Constitution provides that “[r]epeal or amendment of a criminal statute shall not affect prosecution or punishment for any crime previously committed.” Art. X, § 9, Fla. Const. The purpose of this “Savings Clause” is to “require the statute in effect at the time of the crime to govern the sentence
to “correct an illegal sentence.” We treat Bigham’s motion as a motion to correct illegal sentence under rule 3.800(a).
an offender receives for the commission of that crime.” Horsley v. State, 160 So. 3d 393, 406 (Fla. 2015) (citing Castle v. State, 330 So. 2d 10, 11 (Fla. 1976)).
Because the Legislature did not reduce the applicable mandatory minimum sentence until after Bigham committed his offense, the 2014 amendment did not apply, and he was properly charged and sentenced under the 2012 version of the statute. See Anderson v. State, 42 Fla. L. Weekly D1870 (Fla. 1st DCA Aug. 28, 2017) (holding that the mandatory minimums for trafficking in hydrocodone provided for in the 2014 amendment to section 893.135(1)(c) did not apply to an offense committed before the amendment’s effective date). Under these circumstances, Bigham’s rule 3.800 motion was properly denied.
AFFIRMED.
B.L. THOMAS, C.J., and MAKAR, J., concur.
_____________________________ Not final until disposition of any timely and authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 9.331.
_____________________________
Bobby Bigham, pro se, Appellant. Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Kaitlin Weiss, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Horsley v. State, 160 So. 3d 393 (Fla. 2015)
- Darion Northrup Castle v. State, 330 So. 2d 10 (Fla. 1976)
- Anderson v. State, 232 So. 3d 1056 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017)
- Hammond v. State, 232 So. 3d 1056 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017)