{"id":724,"date":"2018-12-11T12:30:51","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T17:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearwatersexcrimeslawyer.com\/?p=329"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:06:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:06:03","slug":"florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Court Vacates Sentence for a Defendant who Entered an Open Plea for Lewd and Lascivious Behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While every suspect is presumed innocent until proven guilty, in some cases it makes sense for a person charged with a sex crime to enter into a plea agreement or to plead guilty and allow the court to assess a penalty based on that plea. Even if a defendant concedes guilt to a crime, however, the law still affords the defendant the right to a fair and appropriate sentence for the offense charged.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, in a <a href=\"https:\/\/law.justia.com\/cases\/florida\/fourth-district-court-of-appeal\/2018\/18-0788.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">case<\/a> arising out of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the court vacated a sentence for a defendant who entered an open plea for the charge of lewd and lascivious behavior, due to an error on the sentencing scoresheet. If you are charged with a sex crime in Clearwater, you should retain a knowledgeable Clearwater sex crime defense attorney to discuss which plea option\u00a0is in your best interest.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Defendant\u2019s Plea and Subsequent Sentencing<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Reportedly, the defendant entered an open plea to lewd or lascivious battery, burglary, and grand theft. In Florida, an open plea is essentially a guilty plea without an agreement with the state regarding sentencing. Rather, an open plea allows the judge to determine the appropriate sentence for the crimes charged.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/#more-724\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While every suspect is presumed innocent until proven guilty, in some cases it makes sense for a person charged with a sex crime to enter into a plea agreement or to plead guilty and allow the court to assess a penalty based on that plea. Even if a defendant concedes guilt to a crime, however, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sex-crimes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Criminal Appeal: Open Plea Sentencing Risks<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jury rules can shape the outcome. A sex crime charge case can hinge on sentence who entered open. See how this ruling defense. Learn what to ask your.\" \/>\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.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Criminal Appeal: Open Plea Sentencing Risks\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Jury rules can shape the outcome. A sex crime charge case can hinge on sentence who entered open. See how this ruling defense. Learn what to ask your.\" \/>\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=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Criminal Appeal: Open Plea Sentencing Risks","description":"Jury rules can shape the outcome. A sex crime charge case can hinge on sentence who entered open. See how this ruling defense. Learn what to ask your.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Criminal Appeal: Open Plea Sentencing Risks","twitter_description":"Jury rules can shape the outcome. A sex crime charge case can hinge on sentence who entered open. See how this ruling defense. Learn what to ask your.","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hanlon Law, PA","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"headline":"Florida Court Vacates Sentence for a Defendant who Entered an Open Plea for Lewd and Lascivious Behavior","datePublished":"2018-12-11T17:30:51+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:06:03+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/"},"wordCount":711,"articleSection":["Sex Crimes"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/","name":"Criminal Appeal: Open Plea Sentencing Risks","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-12-11T17:30:51+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:06:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"description":"Jury rules can shape the outcome. A sex crime charge case can hinge on sentence who entered open. See how this ruling defense. Learn what to ask your.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-vacates-sentence-for-a-defendant-who-entered-an-open-plea-for-lewd-and-lascivious-behavior\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Florida Court Vacates Sentence for a Defendant who Entered an Open Plea for Lewd and Lascivious Behavior"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/","name":"Clearwater Criminal Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Florida Defense Lawyer \u2014 Hanlon Law","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939","name":"Hanlon Law, PA","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Hanlon Law, PA"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1381,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}