Martell Lavon Palmer v. State of Florida

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
STATE OF FLORIDA
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Case No. 5D2023-0854
LT Case No. 2021-CF-010135-A
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MARTELL LAVON PALMER,
Appellant,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
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On appeal from the Circuit Court for Duval County.
Meredith Charbula, Judge.
Matthew J. Metz, Public Defender, and George D.E. Burden,
Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.
James Uthmeier, Attorney General, and Adam B. Wilson,
Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
January 23, 2026
PER CURIAM.
In this appeal from a partial denial of his Florida Rule of
Criminal Procedure 3.800(b)(2) motion, Martell Lavon Palmer
appeals the legality of the trial court’s entry of mandatory
minimum sentences in the written order that were not orally
pronounced at his sentencing hearing. Although the mandatory

2
minimum sentences do not increase his sentence and his presence
for such a sentencing would thus be “useless, or the benefit but a
shadow,”1 precedence from this Court requires reversal. See
Solomon v. State, 254 So. 3d 1121, 1125 (Fla. 5th DCA 2018),
disapproved of on other grounds by Earl v. State, 314 So. 3d 1253
(Fla. 2021) (ordering the defendant be brought before the trial
court to impose the mandatory minimum sentences even though
the correction would not change the term of his sentences, because
“a defendant’s due process rights are violated when mandatory
minimum terms are added to a sentence without the defendant’s
presence”).
REVERSED and REMANDED for resentencing consistent with
this opinion.
MAKAR, BOATWRIGHT, and KILBANE, JJ., concur.2
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Not final until disposition of any timely and
authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
9.331.
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1 Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 106–07 (1934).
2 This case was reassigned after Judge Pratt, who was
previously on the panel, was commissioned as a United States
District Judge.