CLEVELAND
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA
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The State must introduce evidence of a defendant's prior convictions into the record to establish habitual felony offender status for enhanced sentencing; reliance on unadmitted paperwork or the trial court's assumption that evidence was previously admitted is insufficient.
[1] To establish habitual felony offender status for enhanced sentencing, the State must introduce evidence of the defendant's prior convictions into the record; the trial co…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“the State failed to introduce evidence proving that he qualified as a[n HFO] for purposes of an enhanced sentence”
The court explained the error in the original sentencing, noting that while the State provided paperwork, it never admitted it into evidence.
Bo Williams Cleveland was convicted by jury of battery on a corrections officer and sentenced as a habitual felony offender to ten years consecutive. …
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DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
SECOND DISTRICT
BO WILLIAMS CLEVELAND, Appellant,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee.
No. 2D2025-1580
October 30, 2026
Appeal from the Circuit Court for DeSoto County; Don T. Hall, Judge.
Blair Allen, Public Defender, and Joanna Beth Conner, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
James Uthmeier, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Jonathan P. Hurley, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
LaROSE, Judge.
We reversed Bo Williams Cleveland's original sentence. See Cleveland v. State, 406 So. 3d 1142, 1143 (Fla. 2d DCA 2025). He now challenges his new sentence imposed after a resentencing hearing. We have jurisdiction. See Fla. R. App. P. 9.030(b)(1)(A). Regrettably, the same error repeated itself. See Cleveland, 406 So. 3d at 1143. The State failed to establish that Mr. Cleveland qualified for enhanced sentencing. Again, we reverse and remand for resentencing.
A jury convicted Mr. Cleveland of battery on a corrections officer. The trial court sentenced him as a habitual felony offender (HFO) to ten years in prison, consecutive to the term he was already serving.
On appeal of his judgment and sentence, we explained that "the State failed to introduce evidence proving that he qualified as a[n HFO] for purposes of an enhanced sentence." Id. We observed that "[t]he transcript of the sentencing hearing reflects that the State handed 'proper paperwork to support th[e] enhanced sentence' to the trial court, but the State never admitted the paperwork into evidence, and it is not in the appellate record." Id. (second alteration in original). We reversed and "remanded for a new sentencing hearing at which the State may again attempt to prove that Mr. Cleveland qualifies as a[n HFO]." Id. at 1144.
On remand, the trial court again sentenced Mr. Cleveland as an HFO without receiving his prior convictions into evidence. Apparently, the trial court relied upon the State's misplaced representation that it entered Mr. Cleveland's prior convictions into evidence at the original sentencing hearing. It did not. See id. at 1143. Therefore, the same problem remains: the lack of record evidence showing that Mr. Cleveland qualifies as an HFO.
We reverse Mr. Cleveland's sentence and remand for the trial court to conduct a third sentencing hearing. The State shall, yet again, have the opportunity to introduce evidence establishing that Mr. Cleveland qualifies for an enhanced sentence. See Forman v. State, 312 So. 3d 141, 145 (Fla. 2d DCA 2020).
Reversed and remanded with instructions.
NORTHCUTT and BLACK, JJ., Concur.
Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.