BREAKING NEWS: Florida Defendant Still Waiting for Ruling on Motion Claiming Illegal Sentence
LEE COUNTY, FL — January 2026
A legal storm is brewing inside the Twentieth Judicial Circuit of Florida, where a high-stakes motion filed by inmate Adam Murray Costello on June 30, 2025, continues to sit unresolved six months later. The motion—filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.800(a)—alleges that Costello has been serving two illegal sentences stemming from his 2018 convictions in a case of a pack of motorcycles racing though a residential neighborhood at over 100 mph in 2016, the motorcycle rider hitting the accelerator too hard while fleeing from a prior accident, and causing a single vehicle wreck. This type of motion is considered an “emergency motion” and is typically heard within 30 days, 60 days on the outside.
Costello, now in custody in Pompano Beach, filed what he titled his “Second Amended Motion to Correct Illegal Sentence.” The document, obtained by our newsroom, lays out a dramatic challenge to the legal foundations of both his convictions and his negotiated plea deal.
Despite the seriousness of the claims, the court has not issued any ruling—a silence that has left Costello’s case in limbo and sparked growing questions about delays inside the 20th Circuit.
THE MOTION: A DIRECT ATTACK ON THE SENTENCES THEMSELVES
Costello argues two main points:
1. The 10.5-year sentence for Leaving the Scene of a Crash Involving Death was imposed under a “repealed statute.”
According to Costello’s filing, the version of §316.027(2)(c), Florida Statutes, used in his prosecution had already been revised in 2015 after the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Dorsett.
He claims prosecutors charged him using the older version—one that no longer existed at the time of the 2016 incident—and that the sentence that followed is therefore illegal on its face.
2. His 5-year sentence for Tampering with Evidence is also “illegal” because the Criminal Punishment Code would have required a minimum of 10.5 years.
According to the motion, the victim-injury points applied to his sentencing scoresheet pushed the lowest permissible sentence above the statutory maximum for a third-degree felony.
Because the trial judge orally pronounced five years, Costello says that sentence was below the lawful minimum—another form of illegal sentence under Florida law.
The motion argues that no judge could lawfully impose either sentence “under any set of circumstances,” and that even a plea agreement cannot authorize a court to impose a sentence that the law does not permit.
YEARS OF APPEALS, BUT STILL NO FINAL ANSWER
Costello’s case has traveled a long legal road:
- A prior Rule 3.850 motion challenging his sentencing scoresheet reached the appellate courts.
- The Second District Court of Appeal initially sent the case back for an evidentiary hearing.
- At Costello’s evidentiary hearing, Judge Margaret Steinbeck stated on the record that Costello was NEVER charged with causation of death and no evidence existed at any time in this case that would support a finding that he caused death. Despite this, she reaffirmed the sentence after the hearing.
- The newly formed Sixth District Court of Appeal later affirmed again.
With those battles settled, Costello turned to Rule 3.800(a), a rare legal mechanism that allows courts to correct illegal sentences “at any time.”
He filed the amended version of this motion on June 30, 2025.
It was later re-filed on September 11, 2025, and stamped by the Lee County Clerk on September 18, 2025.
Yet no court order has followed.
A CASE CAUGHT IN SUSPENSE
Costello claims he has already served 7.5 years under a plea that, he argues, was built on two illegal sentencing terms.
If a court someday agrees with him, the consequences could be dramatic—potentially voiding the plea, rewriting the sentences, or allowing prosecutors to take the case back to trial.
Legal analysts say 3.800(a) motions are meant to be straightforward, fast, and limited only to errors visible “on the face of the record.”
But with months passed and the motion still undecided, this case has become anything but routine.
For now, Costello—and the public—waits.