ASHLEY ANNE SCHIEDENHELM
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA

Fla. 5th DCA | 2021-08-27
No. 21-1565
Traver, J., Cohen, J., Sasso, J., Howard, Richard A.
Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (2021)

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.

Holding

A postconviction court must award jail credit for time spent in another Florida county jail unless the defendant's charges in that county were still pending when arrested on separate charges in the sentencing county. The court erred in applying discretionary authority to deny such credit and must allow amendment of an insufficient motion.

Headnotes

[1] A trial court must award jail credit for all time a defendant spent in county jail before sentencing under Florida Statute 921.161(1).

[2] A defendant held on a detainer in another Florida county jail is entitled to jail credit for that time only if the charges in the second county were resolved before the d…

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Key Quotes

“Florida law provides that a trial court 'shall allow a defendant credit for all of the time she or he spent in the county jail before sentence.'”

Establishes the mandatory nature of jail credit under Florida statute 921.161(1).

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Facts & Procedural History

Appellant was convicted of methamphetamine possession in 2018 and placed on probation. She violated probation in 2019 and was arrested on new methamph…

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Topics
Probation Violation Sentencing Credit For Jail Time Served Violation Of Probation Sentencing

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Opinion of the Court
Sasso

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FIFTH DISTRICT

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO

FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND

DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

ASHLEY ANNE SCHIEDENHELM,

Appellant,

v. Case No. 5D21-1565

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

________________________________/

Opinion filed August 27, 2021

3.801 Appeal from the Circuit Court for Citrus County, Richard A. Howard, Judge.

Ashley Anne Schiedenhelm, Brooksville, pro se.

No Appearance for Appellee.

TRAVER, J.

Ashley Anne Schiedenhelm (“Appellant”) appeals the summary denial of her motion for jail credit. We affirm the postconviction court’s award of time served in the Citrus County jail. We reverse and remand for the postconviction court to provide her leave to amend her motion—if she can

2 do so in good faith—to seek additional credit for time spent in the Sumter County jail.

The trial court placed Appellant, who had no criminal felony history, on five years’ drug offender probation for a 2018 possession of methamphetamine conviction. When she violated her probation in 2019 for, among other things, possession of methamphetamine, the trial court sentenced her to five years in prison. It awarded her no credit for time served. Following sentencing, Appellant timely filed a motion for jail credit. She sought credit for 117 days spent in the Sumter County jail, dating from her arrest on the new possession charge until her transfer to Citrus County to address her violation of probation case. She also requested credit for 99 days spent in the Citrus County jail following this transfer and her subsequent arrest on the violation of probation warrant in Citrus County. The postconviction court granted her motion in part, awarding her the 99 days she spent in the Citrus County jail, plus an additional two days from her 2018 arrest. Citing Gethers v. State, 838 So. 2d 504 (Fla. 2003), and Johnson v. State, 932 So. 2d 300, 301 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006), the postconviction court invoked its discretionary authority to deny Appellant any time served in Sumter County. The postconviction court erred because

AFFIRMED in part, REVERSED in part, and REMANDED.

COHEN and SASSO, JJ., concur.

Footnotes
3 Gethers did not give it discretion to deny Appellant time served in another Florida jail, and Johnson did not apply. Florida law provides that a trial court “shall allow a defendant credit for all of the time she or he spent in the county jail before sentence.” See § 921.161(1), Fla. Stat. (2021). The Gethers Court held that this entitlement does not, however, necessarily extend to time spent awaiting transfer from other Florida jails following arrests on separate charges. 838 So. 2d at 508. This holding turned on the difference between a detainer, which “informally place officials on notice that a defendant is wanted in another jurisdiction,” and the execution of an arrest warrant. Id. at 507. For example, if Appellant had been arrested in Sumter County for charges brought in Citrus County, she would be entitled to jail credit in Citrus County for time served in Sumter County. See id. That did not occur here. Law enforcement arrested Appellant on new Sumter County charges, and Citrus County merely placed a detainer on her requiring transfer to Citrus County after Sumter County’s charges were resolved. This, however, does not end our inquiry because Gethers is subject to several exceptions. Gethers does not apply to prisoners held only on detainer once their charges in the second county have been resolved. Id.; Bonilla v. State, 884 So. 2d 1072, 1073 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004). It also does
4 not apply to those incarcerated outside Florida or in Florida prisons, and in those cases, postconviction courts have discretion to award credit for time served. See, e.g., Kronz v. State, 462 So. 2d 450, 451 (Fla. 1985); Cregg v. State, 43 So. 3d 818, 820 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010); Tribble v. State, 958 So. 2d 543, 543–44 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007); Johnson, 932 So. 2d at 301. This case involves credit for time served in a Florida county jail, not Florida prison. Thus, the postconviction court erred by applying Johnson and concluding it had discretion whether to award Appellant credit for time served in the Sumter County jail. Instead, Gethers controls the outcome. If Appellant’s Sumter County charges were resolved before her transfer to Citrus County, and her Citrus County detainer was the only reason Sumter County held her, she is entitled to credit for time served. If her Sumter County charges were still pending when law enforcement served her arrest warrant in Citrus County for her violation of probation case, then she is not. Indeed, Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.801(c)(4) requires movants to disclose the existence of other criminal charges pending during their incarceration and the resolution of those charges. This information allows postconviction courts to determine whether the detainer exception outlined in Gethers applies.
5 Appellant did not provide this information, and accordingly, her motion was legally insufficient. Rule 3.801(e) required the postconviction court to provide her an opportunity to amend her motion. See Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.801(e) (incorporating Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850(f)(2)’s amendment procedures); Maguire v. State, 185 So. 3d 695, 696 (Fla. 5th DCA 2016). We therefore affirm the postconviction court’s award of 101 days’ credit for time served but reverse and remand with directions that the postconviction court provide Appellant 60 days to amend her motion for additional time served in the Sumter County jail, if she can do so in good faith. See Crawford v. State, 291 So. 3d 1004, 1005 (Fla. 5th DCA 2020).

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