{"id":864,"date":"2023-03-31T13:22:40","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T17:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tampacriminallawyer.net\/?p=864"},"modified":"2026-01-07T10:39:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T15:39:28","slug":"court-discusses-sentence-variances-in-florida-criminal-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/court-discusses-sentence-variances-in-florida-criminal-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Discusses Sentence Variances in Florida Criminal Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At both the state and federal levels, sentencing guidelines set forth what constitutes an appropriate sentence for certain offenses. The courts are not bound by the guidelines, though, and can issue a sentence that is greater or lesser than that suggested. In doing so, the court must abide by certain procedural rules, and if it fails to, the defendant may have grounds for challenging the sentence. Recently, a Florida court examined whether a court violated a defendant\u2019s rights in issuing a sentence that represented an upward variance for a gun crime, ultimately determining that it did not. If you are accused of unlawfully possessing a weapon, it is in your best interest to meet with a Tampa weapons crime defense attorney to discuss your rights.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>History of the Case<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is reported that the defendant was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. He pleaded guilty, after which he was sentenced to unlawfully possessing a firearm as a felon. Although his advisory guidelines range was calculated as 21 to 27 months\u2019 imprisonment, the court sentenced him to 50 months. The defendant appealed.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Sentence Variances in Florida Criminal Cases<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On appeal, the defendant argued that his sentence constituted an upward departure rather than an upward variance. The court disagreed, however, ruling that the defendant\u2019s sentence was an upward variance based on the trial court&#8217;s stated reasons for imposing it. Specifically, the court found that the trial court did not refer to a departure provision and that the grounds the trial court gave for the sentence were based on the factors outlined in the imposition of a sentence <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govinfo.gov\/content\/pkg\/USCODE-2021-title18\/pdf\/USCODE-2021-title18-partII-chap227-subchapA-sec3553.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">law.<\/a> Thus, the court declined to adopt the defendant\u2019s arguments that the trial court erred in failing to comply with established procedures for imposing an upward departure. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/court-discusses-sentence-variances-in-florida-criminal-cases\/#more-864\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At both the state and federal levels, sentencing guidelines set forth what constitutes an appropriate sentence for certain offenses. The courts are not bound by the guidelines, though, and can issue a sentence that is greater or lesser than that suggested. In doing so, the court must abide by certain procedural rules, and if it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evidence","category-weapons"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Florida Sentence Variances: When Courts Allow Them<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Facing sentencing in Florida? Learn how sentence \u201cvariances\u201d work and when a judge may go higher or lower than the guideline.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/court-discusses-sentence-variances-in-florida-criminal-cases\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Florida Sentence Variances: When Courts Allow Them\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Facing sentencing in Florida? Learn how sentence \u201cvariances\u201d work and when a judge may go higher or lower than the guideline.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/florida-sentence-variance-gun-case.webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hanlon Law, PA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Florida Sentence Variances: When Courts Allow Them","description":"Facing sentencing in Florida? 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Learn how sentence \u201cvariances\u201d work and when a judge may go higher or lower than the guideline.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/court-discusses-sentence-variances-in-florida-criminal-cases\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/court-discusses-sentence-variances-in-florida-criminal-cases\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/court-discusses-sentence-variances-in-florida-criminal-cases\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/florida-sentence-variance-gun-case.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/florida-sentence-variance-gun-case.webp","width":1000,"height":750,"caption":"Wooden gavel beside revolver and cartridges symbolizing Florida court rulings on firearm sentencing variances"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/court-discusses-sentence-variances-in-florida-criminal-cases\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Court Discusses Sentence Variances in Florida Criminal Cases"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/","name":"Tampa Criminal Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Tampa Criminal Attorney \u2014 Hanlon Law","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8b1bbe17dcab105246cd4cb867e91837","name":"Hanlon Law, PA","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c09dcc7ad49cb4e69012e689c8f8279e82819db3eccff0cdeeccdacb7210dc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c09dcc7ad49cb4e69012e689c8f8279e82819db3eccff0cdeeccdacb7210dc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c09dcc7ad49cb4e69012e689c8f8279e82819db3eccff0cdeeccdacb7210dc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Hanlon Law, PA"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/florida-sentence-variance-gun-case.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1316,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions\/1316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}