Opinion
Case No. 2D20-1979
05-14-2021
Amjad ALQAWASMEH, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.
Chris W. Altenbernd of Banker Lopez Gassler P.A., Tampa, for Petitioner. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Katherine Coombs Cline, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, and Michael S. Roscoe, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa (substituted as counsel of record), for Respondent.
Chris W. Altenbernd of Banker Lopez Gassler P.A., Tampa, for Petitioner.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Katherine Coombs Cline, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, and Michael S. Roscoe, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa (substituted as counsel of record), for Respondent.
NORTHCUTT, Judge.
Amjad Alqawasmeh petitioned for certiorari review of the trial court's order granting the State's motion to clarify his jail sentence and ordering that he serve the remainder of the sentence in the county jail facility rather than in an electronic monitoring program. We treat the petition as an appeal from an amended sentence, and we reverse.
Alqawasmeh was convicted of two first-degree misdemeanors in Pinellas County, for which he received consecutive one-year jail sentences. Owing to overcrowding in Pinellas County's jail, at the time of Alqawasmeh's sentencing a Sixth Judicial Circuit administrative order had outlined and endorsed the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office Electronic Monitoring Program. Under that program, inmates were selected to serve their sentences outside the jail facility while under supervision by electronic monitoring. Both the administrative order and the program's standard operating procedure document recited that assigning an inmate to the program was in the sheriff's discretion unless "specifically prohibited" by the sentencing court or by law.
The trial court did not prohibit Alqawasmeh's placement in the electronic monitoring program, either when orally pronouncing his sentence or when rendering his written sentence. Alqawasmeh qualified for and was placed in the program, whereupon he was assigned to a bedroom in his brother's house to serve his sentence. The State subsequently filed a motion requesting that the court "clarify" Alqawasmeh's sentence to prohibit his placement in the electronic monitoring program and order him back to the jail facility to complete his sentence. Following a hearing, the trial court granted the motion but stayed the order while it was being challenged in this court.
The trial court should have denied the State's motion because the treatment and placement of an inmate serving a county jail sentence is outside a sentencing court's purview. County sheriffs are constitutional officers within the executive branch. See Sheriff of Pasco Cnty. v. Florida State Lodge, 53 So. 3d 1073, 1074 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010). "Operation of the county jail is within the province of the executive and legislative branches of government, not the judicial branch." Armor Corr. Health Servs., Inc. v. Ault, 942 So. 2d 976, 977 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006). As such, the sheriff has the executive duty and authority to operate the county jail pursuant to section 30.49(2)(a), Florida Statutes (2019). White v. Palm Beach Cnty., 404 So. 2d 123, 125 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981). "[U]nder the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers, the judicial branch must not interfere with the discretionary functions of the legislative or executive branches of government absent a violation of constitutional or statutory rights." Trianon Park Condo. Ass'n v. City of Hialeah, 468 So. 2d 912, 918 (Fla. 1985). Thus, it is firmly established that sentencing courts wholly lack authority to direct the treatment and placement of prisoners serving sentences in the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections. Forney v. Crews, 112 So. 3d 741, 743 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013). Courts likewise lack such authority with respect to inmates serving county jail sentences in the custody of sheriffs. Cuesta v. State, 929 So. 2d 648, 649 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006). The trial court here simply was not empowered to interfere with or countermand Alqawasmeh's assignment to the electronic monitoring program.
Accordingly, we reverse and remand with instructions to strike the order on appeal.
Reversed and remanded.
ATKINSON and STARGEL, JJ., Concur.