The Second District Court of Appeal has held that a Manatee County judge could not depart below the guidelines for a man convicted of selling cocaine within 1,000 feet of a church because of the small amount of drugs involved or because of the volunteer work he did while jailed awaiting trial.
Wayne Carlton Mathis sold 0.8 grams of crack cocaine to undercover Manatee County Sheriff’s Office detectives, in an operation that began in the parking lot of a Bradenton convenience store. He was sixty-four at sentencing, had eighteen prior felony convictions, and his lowest permissible sentence was 69.75 months’ imprisonment. His counsel did not move for a departure, conceding there was no basis for one. The trial court departed on its own, citing three nonstatutory grounds: the small amount of cocaine, Mathis’s 5,776 hours as a cook in the jail kitchen, and his volunteer talks with young people in Teen Court. It imposed one year of community control followed by two years of drug offender probation.
The Second District reversed. Departing based on drug quantity is not consistent with legislative sentencing policy, and neither is a judge’s personal belief that the lowest permissible sentence overstates the seriousness of the offense. “Mathis’s volunteer work while incarcerated and awaiting trial, although undeniably laudable, does not relate to the nature of the crime itself or to Mathis’s offense conduct or level of culpability,” the court wrote. In a footnote, it said the discretion to reduce a prison sentence for good behavior while incarcerated belongs to the Department of Corrections through gain time, and the decision to depart below the lowest permissible sentence on that basis “constituted an impermissible end run around the Department.”
The court also held that the State’s general objection was enough to preserve the issue on this record. It remanded for resentencing, noting that the trial court is not precluded from departing on other grounds as long as the departure “comports with the principles and criteria” of the Criminal Punishment Code.
Download the full opinion (PDF)
Citation: State v. Mathis, No. 2D2025-2309 (Fla. 2d DCA Oct. 9, 2026).
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