Amed Youssef Bamba v. the State of Florida

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: March 19, 2025
• Docket: 3D2023-1743
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed March 19, 2025. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

No. 3D23-1743 Lower Tribunal No. M23-9759 ________________

Amed Youssef Bamba, Appellant,

vs.

The State of Florida, Appellee.

An Appeal from the County Court for Miami-Dade County, Cristina Rivera Correa, Judge.

Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Deborah Prager, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.

James Uthmeier, Attorney General, and David Llanes, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before LOGUE, C.J., and SCALES and MILLER, JJ.

PER CURIAM. Affirmed. See State v. Garcia, 346 So. 3d 581, 585–86 (Fla. 2022)

(“Garcia’s counsel did not object to the State’s discussion of his misconduct

while on bond at all, let alone on the basis that the court impermissibly

considered Garcia’s postarrest misconduct. . . . In light of Garcia’s failure to

preserve the issue, appellate review is conditioned on finding that the trial

court’s alleged consideration of Garcia’s postarrest misconduct constitutes

fundamental error. . . . The sentencing judge heard argument on a motion

for downward departure seeking a sentence of probation. In considering the

defendant’s amenability to such a sentence, the court considered ‘all the

evidence’—admittedly including evidence about incidents that it previously

considered in revoking Garcia’s bond. . . . In light of all these considerations,

looking at a sentencing range between 34.8 and 360 months, the court

reasoned that a sentence of 84 months was appropriate. We cannot say

that this determination reflects the trial court’s having committed fundamental

error on the order of an illegal sentence.”) (citations omitted); Nelson v. State,

392 So. 3d 174, 182–83 (Fla. 5th DCA 2024) (“While we recognize that the

trial court here appeared to place even greater weight on the allegedly

impermissible factor than the Garcia trial court did, the additional weight is

offset by the improbability that it made any difference in the ultimate

sentence. . . . Nelson thus presents a particularly weak case for

2 fundamental error. He asks us to find fundamental error in a bottom-of-the-

guidelines sentence where the trial court considered a variety of evidence

concerning the circumstances of his offenses, including his pecuniary

motive, and where the only possible prejudice to him resulted from

determinations over which the trial court has wide discretion. In sum,

Nelson’s sentence could well have been obtained without the assistance of

the purported error that he alleges.”), review denied, No. SC2024-1356,

2025 WL 18440 (Fla. Jan. 2, 2025).