Amendments to Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.111(e) & 3.800

In December 1998, Chief Justice Harding created the Criminal Appeal Reform Act Committee (the CARA Committee)1 to review all rules of procedure affected by the Criminal Appeal Reform Act of 1996 (the Act) in light of unexpected problems that arose in implementing the intent of the Act, especially with regard to the early detection and correction of sentencing errors. The Court urged the Committee to expedite its deliberations, but to elicit input from all other related rules committees and from attorneys with expertise in the field.2 Accordingly, the CARA Committee filed this emergency…