MICHAEL P. MONROE, JR. v. STATE OF FLORIDA , 270 So. 3d 513 ( 2019 )

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING
MOTION AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
OF FLORIDA
SECOND DISTRICT
MICHAEL P. MONROE, JR., )
)
Appellant, )
)
v. ) Case No. 2D18-795
)
STATE OF FLORIDA, )
)
Appellee. )
)
Opinion filed May 3, 2019.
Appeal pursuant to Fla. R. App. P.
9.141(b)(2) from the Circuit Court for
Polk County; Neil A. Roddenbery,
Judge.
Michael P. Monroe, Jr., pro se.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General,
Tallahassee, Donna S. Koch, Assistant
Attorney General, Tampa for Appellee.
ROTHSTEIN-YOUAKIM, Judge.
The postconviction court summarily denied Michael P. Monroe, Jr.'s,
amended motion for prison and jail credit.1 We affirm as to the denial of prison credit
1As a request for prison credit, the amended motion is governed by Florida
Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a); as a request for jail credit, it is governed by rule
3.801. See Bolduc v. State, 251 So. 3d 314, 315 (Fla. 2d DCA 2018).
but reverse for the postconviction court to further review Monroe's request for jail credit
and to grant him additional credit, attach copies of the portions of the court records or
files that support the denial of his request, or conduct an evidentiary hearing.
Monroe was arrested for a criminal offense in Hillsborough County in April
2016 and detained in jail. At the time, he was subject to two orders of probation for
earlier offenses committed in Hillsborough and Polk Counties. In his amended motion
for prison and jail credit, Monroe asserted that while in the Hillsborough County jail, he
had been served with a "warrantless arrest affidavit" or "detainer" from Polk County. He
further asserted that in September 2016, he had been sentenced to fifteen months in
state prison on the Hillsborough County cases. He asserted that while he was in prison,
the Polk County authorities had issued another "warrantless arrest affidavit."
Upon his release from prison, Monroe was sent to the Polk County jail,
and, in June 2017, he admitted the Polk County violation of probation (VOP) in
exchange for a three-year prison sentence. The snap-out "memo of sentence" reflected
that he was to be given "credit for t[ime] s[erved] in Hillsborough County for arrest in this
VOP (if any)," but the memo did not specify the number of days of credit. On October
17, 2017, however, the Department of Corrections (DOC), in response to an inquiry by
Monroe, indicated that DOC had credited him with 340 days of jail credit. Although the
DOC's response did not indicate the range or ranges of dates encompassed within that
340-day figure, Monroe's amended motion identified three separate periods during
which he assertedly had been in jail, and those periods add up to 340 days.
Those periods do not include time that Monroe spent in prison on the
Hillsborough County cases or time that he spent in the Polk County jail between his
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release from prison on the Hillsborough County cases and his sentence to prison on the
Polk County VOP. In his amended motion, Monroe requested an additional 254 days of
prison and jail credit for that entire period, which ran from September 27, 2016, to June
7, 2017.2 The postconviction court denied the motion, ruling that the case law on which
Monroe relied had been superseded and that he was not entitled to additional credit.
The postconviction court correctly concluded that Monroe was not entitled
to credit against his Polk County sentence for the time that he had spent in prison on
the Hillsborough County cases because, according to Monroe's own assertion, Polk
County had issued only a detainer, not an arrest warrant. See Norman v. State, 900
So. 2d 702, 703 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005) ("When a detainer has been issued against a
prisoner, generally the prisoner will not be entitled to prison credit in the case with the
detainer when he is sentenced in that case following the completion of the sentence he
is currently serving. See Gethers v. State, 838 So. 2d 504, 508 (Fla. 2003). On the
other hand, if an arrest warrant is transmitted and a prisoner is arrested under the
authority of that warrant, the prisoner may be entitled to credit because he is being held
on both charges. [Id.] at 507."). We therefore affirm the postconviction court's denial of
Monroe's request for prison credit.
It does not appear, however, that the postconviction court accounted for
the portion of the requested 254 days that Monroe had spent in the Polk County jail
after his release from prison on the Hillsborough County cases but before he was
sentenced to prison on the Polk County VOP. Monroe is entitled to credit for that
2Based on Monroe's assertion in his original motion for prison and jail
credit, which the postconviction court dismissed with leave to amend, he appears to
have been transported from prison to the Polk County jail on May 5, 2017.
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period, assuming that it is not already incorporated into the 340 days of credit that he
has been granted. See § 921.161(1), Fla. Stat. (2016) ("[T]he court imposing a
sentence shall allow a defendant credit for all of the time she or he spent in the county
jail before sentence."). Because the postconviction court failed to attach copies of
portions of court records or files to refute this component of Monroe's claim, we cannot
determine what, if any, jail credit he may be entitled to. We therefore reverse the
postconviction court's denial of Monroe's claim as it pertains to jail credit. On remand,
the court may grant the additional credit, attach portions of the record that conclusively
refute his clam, or conduct an evidentiary hearing to resolve the issue. The trial court
may also consider requiring the State to respond to the motion. See Fla. R. Crim. P.
3.801(e) (incorporating rule 3.850(f)).
Affirmed in part; reversed in part; remanded.
LaROSE, C.J., and BLACK, J., Concur.
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