Davis v. State

In my judgment, the circumstánces of this case, in which the trial court (a) not only participated in the plea negotiations *362conducted before trial, but itself and on its own motion offered the defendant a bottom-of-the-guidelines four-year sentence if he agreed, as he did not, to plead guilty,3 and (b) imposed a twenty-year sentence after he was found guilty by the jury, with no satisfactory reason for the discrepancy,4 *363present a near-classic case of what the law terms “vindictive sentencing.”5 See State v. Warner, 762 So.2d 507 (Fla.2000); Wilson v. State, 845 So.2d 142 (Fla.2003); Dominguez…