Consequences of the Defendant's Prior Convictions Erroneously Being Omitted from the Original Scoresheet

In Roberts v. State, 644 So. 2d 81 (Fla. 1994), some of the defendant's prior convictions were erroneously omitted from the original scoresheet. This Court concluded that the trial court should have used a revised, recalculated scoresheet during the sentencing. When Roberts was originally sentenced, he received the benefit of a mistake in his guidelines scoresheet. Now that he has committed a new crime and violated his probation, we see no reason to perpetuate the error. Justice is not served by awarding a defendant something to which he is not entitled. The Court agree with the rationale of the opinion below in which the court said: The defendant cites to Graham v. State, 559 So. 2d 343 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990), for the proposition that a trial court is without power to consider a new scoresheet, over objection, containing prior convictions completely omitted from the original. The contention then is that the defendant be sentenced under a scoresheet that is simply not based upon the truth. Consequently, we do not agree with Graham because to follow it literally, the defendant receives the benefit of being sentenced under a scoresheet which mistakenly omits prior convictions. Neither the rules nor the substantive law justifies a defendant receiving the largesse of a judicial error. Since only one guidelines scoresheet may be used for each defendant covering all offenses pending before the court at sentencing, Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.701(d)(1); accord Lambert v. State, 545 So. 2d 838, 841 (Fla. 1989), following the defendant's argument permits him to escape the punishment meted out by the law. Furthermore, since the defendant's violation of probation triggered the resentencing, the defendant is not being sentenced for "precisely the same conduct," and double jeopardy concerns do not come into play. Roberts, 644 So. 2d at 82-83 (quoting Roberts v. State, 611 So. 2d 58 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992)). In short, the Supreme Court of Florida concluded that a defendant is not entitled to perpetuate an error in scoring.