In late 2009, fourteen-year-old D.F. pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery. The trial court placed him on probation for a term not to exceed his nineteenth birthday.1 Subsequently, in 2010, the trial court found D.F. in violation of condition nine for failing to provide written proof that he had completed his community service hours. The trial court continued D.F.’s probation and added ten additional community service hours to the probation conditions. D.F. appeals. Condition nine required D.F. to complete the service hours by March 31, 2010, and to provide written proof. However, condition nine did not specify a date by which D.F. must provide the documentation. See § 775.021(1), Fla. Stat. (2009) (ambiguities “shall be construed most favorably to the accused”) (rule of lenity). Consequently, we must reverse.
Condition nine of the original disposition order stated as follows:
Community Service: 10 hours to be performed by the child at the rate of 10 hours per month. Written proof shall be provided to the juvenile probation officer, aftercare or conditional release counselor.... Community service hours are to begin by 2/1/10 and be completed by 3/31/10.
D.F. had two months to complete the service hours. His probation, however, could continue beyond that time. We find it interesting that the State did not charge D.F. with a violation of condition four: “The child shall ... carry out all instructions of the ... juvenile probation officer .... ” D.F.’s probation officer testified that D.F. told her on June 22 that he had completed the service hours but could not find the supporting paperwork. She testified that she repeatedly asked D.F. and his mother for the documentation.
The trial court framed its inquiry as to whether D.F. had complied with the written verification requirement of condition nine:
Regardless of whether he did the hours or not. He may have. I can’t find that he didn’t. The probation officer was only able to testify that he said that he did and she was unable to verify it.... Paragraph nine clearly states written proof shall be provided to the juvenile probation officer after care or conditional release counselor. So that’s all I want to focus on. Not whether he did them or didn’t do them, but whether or not he gave written proof to his probation officer. Which her testimony before the Court is that he has not.
In doing so, the trial court conflated conditions four and nine. An alleged violation of condition nine, however, was the basis for the trial court’s decision. Condition nine does not tell D.F. when to submit the documentation.
In Dean v. State, 948 So.2d 1042 (Fla. 2d DCA 2007), we reversed a revocation of probation where the order requiring the defendant to perform 150 community service hours at the rate of five hours per month failed to specify a starting or end
Reversed.
1.
If a trial court adjudicates a child delinquent, juvenile probation may not exceed the maximum term the court could impose on an adult for the same offense. See § 985.435(5), .455(3), Fla. Stat. (2009). Where, as here, the trial court withholds adjudication of delinquency, see § 985.35(4)(a), it may impose probation until a juvenile's nineteenth birthday. See N.W. v. State, 767 So.2d 446, 450 (Fla.2000); R.F. v. State, 42 So.3d 333, 334-35 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010).