 |
| Cases Dismissed | Drug Charge Defense Attorney Lawyer |
Drug Charges?
Call 813-222-2220
Full Copy of Florida Drug Charges Dismissed Order is Here.
Here is most of the text of the Order.
ORDER ON MOTIONS TO DISMISS
A[F]or there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.@
B William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
I. Introduction
The 39 defendants captioned above are similarly circumstanced in that all are charged with violation of Fla. Stat. § 893.13. In light of the recent decision in Shelton v. Department of Corrections, No. 6:07-cv-839-Orl-35-KRS, 2011 WL 3236040 (M.D. Fla. July 27, 2011 ), finding '893.13 unconstitutional, all defendants move for dismissal. I have consolidated these cases for purposes of these motions only.
II. Shelton
Mackle Shelton October 5, 2004 , and charged with a long list of serious crimes. Among those crimes was delivery of cocaine in violation of Fla. Stat. § 893.13. Shelton Shelton Id. Id.
The federal court began by examining two principal cases from the Florida Supreme Court which construed § 893.13 prior to certain statutory changes in 2002. In Chicone v. State, 684 So.2d 736 (Fla. Florida Florida Shelton
(1) The Legislature finds that the cases of Scott v. State and Chicone v. State, holding that the state must prove that the defendant knew of the illicit nature of a controlled substance found in his or her actual or constructive possession, were contrary to legislative intent.
(2) The Legislature finds that knowledge of the illicit nature of a controlled substance is not an element of any offense under this chapter. Lack of knowledge of the illicit nature of a controlled substance is an affirmative defense to the offenses of this chapter.
(3) In those instances in which a defendant asserts the affirmative defense described in this section, the possession of a controlled substance, whether actual or constructive, shall give rise to a permissive presumption that the possessor knew of the illicit nature of the substance. It is the intent of the Legislature that, in those cases where such an affirmative defense is raised, the jury shall be instructed on the permissive presumption provided in this subsection.
§ 893.101, Fla. Stat. (internal citation omitted).
The purpose and effect of this legislative enactment was Aexpressly to eliminate mens rea as an element of a drug offense.@ Shelton Shelton Id.
The Shelton court began its analysis by citing landmark cases for bedrock principles of law: Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246 (1952) for the proposition that, A[t]he requirement to prove some mens rea to establish guilt for conduct that is criminalized is firmly rooted@ in our jurisprudence, Shelton, 2011 WL 3236040, at *5; Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227 (1999) and Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197 (1977) for the proposition that although the legislature has the authority to define and alter the elements of a criminal offense, it must do so within applicable constitutional constraints, Shelton, 2011 WL 3236040, at *5; Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600 (1994) for the proposition that strict liability crimes (such as § 893.13 subsequent to the 2002 legislative enactments) are constitutional if and only if the penalty imposed is slight, a conviction does not result in substantial stigma, and the statute defining the strict-liability crime regulates inherently dangerous or deleterious conduct, Shelton, 2011 WL 3236040, at *5. The court then tested the present version of § 893.13 against the three Staples factors.
As to the first two Staples factors B severity of punishment and of attendant social stigma B Shelton Shelton Shelton
Regarding the social stigma that accompanies Shelton Shelton
[T]here can be little question that a conviction for a second degree felony coupled with a sentence of fifteen to thirty years tends to Agravely besmirch@ a person=s reputation. As the Supreme Court noted, a felony is Aas bad a word as you can give to a man or a thing.@ Convicted felons cannot vote, sit on a jury, serve in public office, possess a firearm, obtain certain professional licenses, or obtain federal student loan assistance. The label of Aconvicted felon,@ combined with a proclamation that the defendant is so vile that he must be separated from society for fifteen to thirty years, creates irreparable damage to the defendant=s reputation and standing in the community. This social stigma precludes, for example, the ability of a convicted felon to reside in any neighborhood of his choosing or to obtain certain employment.
The final, and most analytically complex, prong of the Shelton Shelton Id. Dover
According to Shelton
[T]here is a long tradition throughout human existence of lawful delivery and transfer of containers that might contain substances under innumerable facts and circumstances: carrying luggage on and off of public transportation; carrying bags in and out of stores and buildings; carrying book bags and purses in schools and places of business and work; transporting boxes via commercial transportation B the list extends ad infinitum. Under Florida
Because Fla. Stat. § 893.13 creates a strict liability offense B an offense that expressly eschews any form of mens rea B and because the crimes created by § 893.13 fail to meet any of the three conditions required for a strict-liability crime to satisfy constitutional Due Process standards, the Shelton court found the statute to be facially unconstitutional.
In the wake of Shelton , Florida Shelton Florida Shelton
III. In the unique circumstances of this case, the opinion of the U.S. Shelton
Whether, in a context such as this one, the opinion of a federal court is binding upon state courts turns upon the application of two familiar principles. The first is that of federalism, sometimes referred to as "our federalism," Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. Florida Florida
The second principle relevant to the issue at bar is that of federal supremacy, see U.S. Const. art. VI. Although the meaning of a given Florida statute is ultimately to be determined by Florida courts, the federal constitutionality of that statute is ultimately to be determined by federal courts.
It is undoubtedly true, then, that, AThe rulings of lower federal courts [on matters of state law] are not binding on state courts, although they may be persuasive on a point of law.@ Pignato v. Great Western Bank, 664 So.2d 1011, 1015 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995). Pignato involved a proper understanding of Florida=s intangible tax. Rejecting a construction regarding that tax appearing in a prior opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the Pignato court explained, AWe do not consider ourselves bound by the Eleventh Circuit=s decision, because it construes Florida law, not federal law.@ Id. at 1015.
Of course when we speak of a federal court Aconstruing@ a state statute, we mean that the federal court is attempting to make the statute=s meaning or import clear where the statute=s meaning or import has not been made clear previously. Undeniably a state supreme court is the final arbiter of the meaning of a state statute, and to the extent that cases such as Pignato make that point, they border on tautology. In Shelton, however, there was no point of state law for the federal court to construe, and the federal court engaged in no act of construction. The Florida Supreme Court held not once but twice that a criminal-intent requirement was lacking in § 893.13, unless one were to be judicially interpolated; and the Florida legislature then amended the statute to reject utterly the proposed interpolation. The Shelton court did not construe '893.13, i.e., it did not attempt to make the statute=s meaning clear where the statute=s meaning had not been made clear previously. The Shelton court did no more than pose the question: Accepting that construction of the state statute which has been made manifestly clear by both the judicial and legislative branches of the state government, is that statute at odds with the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the federal constitution? That, to be sure, is purely a question of federal law; and the Florida Supreme Court has Arecognize[d], of course, that state courts are bound by federal court determinations of federal law questions.@ Mobil Oil Corporation v. Shevin, 354 So.2d 372, 375 n. 9 (Fla. 1978) (England, J.) (emphasis in original) (citing Ratner v. Arrington, 111 So.2d 82 (Fla. 3d DCA 1959)).
In response to Shelton, the State Attorney=s Office for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit has, in statements made to the press, referred to State v. Dwyer, 332 So.2d 333 (Fla. 1976), for the notion that Florida trial courts may never look to federal-court decisions for authoritative construction of Florida statutes. But Dwyer is a poor choice of authority. For the proposition that Florida appellate courts, and only Florida appellate courts, can propound controlling constructions of Florida statutes, Dwyer is not needed; for the proposition that, once Florida courts have authoritatively construed a Florida statute, federal courts cannot determine whether that statute (thus construed) violates the federal Constitution, Dwyer will not serve. Indeed the holding of Dwyer, taken in the context in which that holding arose, compared with the holding in Shelton, taken in the context in which that holding arose, makes amply clear that Shelton is binding on Florida courts.
Prior to Dwyer, the Florida Supreme Court had held in Bradshaw v. State, 286 So.2d 4 (Fla. 1973) that Florida=s disorderly conduct statute was constitutional.[7] The following year, however, in Wiegand v. Seaver, 504 F.2d 303 (5th Cir. 1974), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit[8] held the same statute to be unconstitutional. In reliance on Wiegand the circuit court for Charlotte County, Florida, then dismissed disorderly-conduct charges against Dwyer. Dwyer, 332 So.2d at 334.
On direct appeal the Florida Supreme Court remonstrated with the circuit court, reminding it that, AWhere an issue has been decided in the Supreme Court of the state, the lower courts are bound to adhere to the Court=s ruling when considering similar issues, even though the [lower] court might believe that the law should be otherwise.@ Id. at 335. What the trial court should have done was denied Dwyer=s motion to dismiss in reliance on Bradshaw, perhaps expressing in its order a desire that the Florida Supreme Court reconsider its Bradshaw holding in light of Wiegand.
But this reminder to the trial court of the importance of stare decisis and of the judicial chain of command was dicta. The actual holding in Dwyer was:
[T]he constitutional objection raised against Florida Statute § 877.03 by Wiegand, supra, has been cured. Wiegand, noting that this Court had not made a narrowing construction of the statute to exclude from its operation speech protected by the First Amendment, found the statute to be facially overbroad and held it unconstitutional. We have recently made the necessary construction. White v. State, 330 So.2d 3 (Fla. 1976).
Dwyer, 332 So.2d at 335.
That the captioned language, and not the Supreme Court=s lecture to the circuit court about the putatively non-binding nature of federal decisions on Florida courts, is the actual holding of Dwyer is underscored by DeWald v. Wyner, 674 So.2d 836 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996). In DeWald, AThe county court for Palm Beach County@ took the curious position Athat § 877.03 is unconstitutional in light of Wiegand and that the Florida Supreme Court=s later decision in State v. Dwyer does not authorize a contrary conclusion.@ DeWald, 674 So.2d at 837 (internal citations omitted). Reversing, the Fourth District traced the history of the relevant decisions, making clear what, precisely, Dwyer stands for:
Wiegand found the [disorderly conduct] statute facially unconstitutional because it had not then been narrowed by authoritative judicial construction to preclude its use to punish protect speech. In White, however, the supreme court of our state made that authoritative construction. Dwyer merely reiterated that the statute was now valid with its previous limiting construction in White and, accordingly, the Wiegand holding was cured.
DeWald, 674 So.2d at 839.
Shelton appears in a litigation context almost diametrically opposite to that of Dwyer. As the Shelton court carefully notes, the Florida Supreme Court held in both Chicone v. State, 684 So.2d 736 (Fla. 1996) and Scott v. State, 808 So.2d 166 (Fla. 2002) that criminal intent was part of the corpus delicti of every drug crime referenced in Fla. Stat. '893.13, and that every defendant was entitled to have the jury so instructed. Shelton, 2011 WL 3236040, at *1. In direct response to these cases, A[o]n May 13, 2002, the Florida Legislature enacted changes to@ the statutory law. Id. The purpose and effect of the legislative changes was Aexpressly to eliminate mens rea as an element of a drug offense.@ Id.
Compare the sequence of events: In Dwyer, the state supreme court found a statute constitutional. A federal court then held that, absent a limiting construction of that statute by that supreme court, the statute was unconstitutional. The state supreme court then supplied the limiting construction. For a state trial court then to find the statute unconstitutional was wrong in any number of ways B with or without reference to the precedential value of federal case law. By contrast, in Shelton, the state supreme court had (in Chicone and Scott) imposed limiting constructions in order to bring a statute into conformity with the requirements of Due Process. The legislature then recast the statute to make it clear beyond peradventure that the supreme court=s limiting construction was being rejected and rendered a nullity. In finding the amended statutes unconstitutional, the Shelton federal court was simply picking up where the Chicone and Scott state courts had left off. On what doctrinal or precedential theory could a Florida state court not follow Shelton?
The prosecution, in its memorandum in opposition to the present motions, makes heroic efforts to interpret Florida cases such as Johnson v. State, 37 So.3d 975 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010); Harris v. State, 932 So.2d 551 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006); Taylor v. State, 929 So.2d 665 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006); Wright v. State, 920 So.2d 21 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005); and Burnette v. State, 901 So.2d 925 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005), as having considered and rejected a 14th Amendment/Due Process challenge to '893.13. That is more weight than those cases will bear. True, the locution Adue process@ appears somewhere or other in almost all of these cases. (Taylor makes no reference to it). But there are many sources of due process in American jurisprudence. The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution obliges all the states to secure due process of law to all Americans. Art. I '9 of the Florida Constitution obliges the State of Florida to secure due process of law to all Floridians. And the common law may be a source of protection of due-process rights as well, see gen=ly State ex rel. Lanz v. Dowling, 110 So. 522, 523-524 (Fla. 1926). Although the demised Florida cases make some reference to Adue process@ or Asubstantive due process,@ e.g., Wright, 920 So.2 at 23, none particularizes the source of due process upon which it relies. In the absence of such particularization I am obliged as a Florida trial court to presume that Florida appellate courts relied upon a Florida-law-based guarantee of due process, whether constitutional or common-law. No Florida case has decided the issue presently before me: whether '893.13 is unconstitutional by operation of the 14th Amendment to the federal Constitution. The Shelton court reached the same conclusion: A[N]o Florida appellate [court] ... has addressed the constitutionality of ['893.13] under the federal Constitution,@ Shelton, 2011 WL 3236040, at *12; and the Florida cases that appear to give passing consideration to the issue of the constitutionality or not of the statute Acontain no analysis of or citation to the tripartite constitutional analysis@ required by Staples and other U.S. Supreme Court authorities, and employed in Shelton. Id.[9] See also supra note 3. Accordingly, I am bound to follow Shelton=s holding that '893.13 violates the 14th Amendment=s due process guarantee.
IV. Even if treated as Amerely persuasive,@ the conclusion in Shelton B that Fla. Stat. '893.13 violates Due Process by criminalizing conduct in the complete absence of scienter B is irrefragable.
In his federal habeas petition, Mr. Shelton claimed not merely that Fla. Stat. § 893.13 was unconstitutional as applied to him. He went further, claiming that the statute is facially unconstitutional. Shelton, 2011 WL 3236040, at *3.
Although claims of facial unconstitutionality are rare in any context, they are most common in First Amendment jurisprudence. Federal courts have been more receptive (Amore@ being, as ever, a relative term) to claims of facial unconstitutionality on grounds of First Amendment overbreadth than they have been to other claims of facial unconstitutionality, because of the importance of avoiding Aan impermissible risk of suppression of ideas.@ Nightclubs, Inc. v. City of Paducah, 202 F.3d 884, 889 (6th Cir. 2000) (quoting FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 223-4 (1990)(plurality opinion); see also United States v. Frandsen, 212 F.3d 1231, 1236 (11th Cir. 2000) (citing Baby Tam & Co., Inc. v. City of Las Vegas, 154 F.3d 1097, 1100 (9th Cir. 1998)). Shelton=s claim, of course, raised no First Amendment issues.
Another genre of claims of facial unconstitutionality is those made, not pursuant to the First Amendment, but to the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, typically but not necessarily on grounds of vagueness.[10] It is a nice question whether, to bring such a Due Process claim (whether on grounds of vagueness or otherwise), the claimant must allege that there can exist no factual circumstances to which the challenged statute could be constitutionally applied.
In City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41 (1999), the Court dealt with a city ordinance directed at the problem of street gangs. The challenged ordinance had four elements:
First, [a] police officer must reasonably believe that at least one of . . . two or more persons present in a Apublic place@ is a Acriminal street gang member.@ Second, the persons must be Aloitering,@ which the ordinance defines as Aremain[ing] in any one place with no apparent purpose.@ Third, the officer must then order Aall@ of the persons to disperse and remove themselves Afrom the area.@ Fourth, a person must disobey the officer=s order. If any person, whether a gang member or not, disobeys the officer=s order, that person is guilty of violating the ordinance.@
Morales, 527 U.S. at 47. The Court struck down the statute on Due Process vagueness grounds.
In an animated dissent, Justice Scalia cited United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745 (1987) for the proposition that:
A facial challenge to a legislative Act is, of course, the most difficult challenge to mount successfully, since the challenger must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid. That fact that [a legislative Act] might operate unconstitutionally under some conceivable set of circumstances is insufficient to render it wholly invalid.
Morales, 527 U.S. at 78-9 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (emphasis in original); see also id. at 74 (AWhen a facial challenge is successful, the law in question is declared to be unenforceable in all its applications, and not just in its particular application to the party in suit@); id. at 77-78 (Awe have . . . required the facial challenge[r] to . . . . establish that the statute was unconstitutional in all its applications@) (emphasis in original).
Writing for the plurality, Justice Stevens replied that:
To the extent we have consistently articulated a clear standard for facial challenges, it is not the Salerno formulation, which has never been the decisive factor in any decision of this Court, including Salerno itself (even though the defendants in that case did not claim that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to them, the Court nevertheless entertained their facial challenge). . . .
We need not, however, resolve the viability of Salerno=s dictum, because this case comes to us from a state B not a federal B court. . . . [T]he threshold for facial challenges is a species of third party (jus tertii) standing, which we have recognized as a prudential doctrine and not one mandated by Article III of the Constitution. . . . When a state court has reached the merits of a constitutional claim, invoking prudential limitations on the respondent=s assertion of jus tertii would serve no functional purpose. . . .
Whether or not it would be appropriate for federal courts to apply the Salerno standard in some cases B a proposition which is doubtful B state courts need not apply prudential notions of standing created by this Court. . . . Justice Scalia=s assumption that state courts must apply the restrictive Salerno test is incorrect as a matter of law; moreover, it contradicts essential principles of federalism.
Id. at 55 n.22 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
The Supreme Court=s internecine conflict between the Salerno faction and the Morales faction persists, and is a matter of profound concern to lower federal courts. See, e.g., United States v. Rybicki, 354 F.3d 124, 130-132 (2nd Cir. 2003); United States v. Torres, 566 F.Supp.2d 591, 596 n.1 (W.D. Tex. 2008). It need not be a matter of concern here, however; and this for two reasons.
First, as Justice Stevens points out in Morales, prudential rather than jurisdictional concerns militate against broad and ready federal adjudication of challenges to the facial constitutionality of state statutes. When state courts pass upon the constitutionality of their own statutes, no such prudential considerations are present. If anything, prudential concerns point in the opposite direction: state courts, whose interpretations of state statutes are dispositive, must provide a forum for prompt and effective determination of such challenges.
Second, any movant who invokes Shelton satisfies even the exacting standard of Salerno, i.e., he alleges that there exists no set of facts pursuant to which § 893.13 can be constitutional. As the Florida legislature has made abundantly clear, mens rea B knowledge, intent, or the like B is never Aan element of any offense@ defined in § 893.13. Fla. Stat. § 893.101(2). The prosecution is never obliged to plead B much less to prove beyond and to the exclusion of reasonable doubt to a trier of fact B that a defendant charged with any offense within the compass of § 893.13 had any culpable intent. The facts of a given case make no difference. Evidence of a particular defendant=s scienter may or may not be available, but the prosecution is obliged neither to present such evidence nor to plead its existence. Either this practice is always constitutional or it never is; and so, because the facts of a given case matter not at all, a movant who invokes Shelton necessarily claims that there exists no set of facts pursuant to which § 893.13 can be constitutional. He makes this claim as a matter of law.[11] Whether or not his claim is meritorious, his allegations are sufficient to entitle him to an adjudication, even under the difficult Salerno standard.
What remains is to consider the merits of the Shelton analysis. That § 893.13 defines strict-liability crimes is really not open to discussion. It is a rarity for the Florida legislature, or indeed any legislature, to make express reference to a reported opinion and expressly to adopt or reject that opinion.[12] Precisely that happened here. The Florida Supreme Court held not once but twice that mens rea ought to be interpolated into a particular statute. The Florida legislature, referencing those two holdings, passed legislation clearly and categorically rejecting the interpolation of mens rea into that particular statute. It is undeniably the intention of the legislature that '893.13 create and define, and be understood as creating and defining, strict-liability crimes.
The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution places limits on the power of the states to impose criminal punishment for conduct as to which criminal intent need not be pleaded or proven. Staples’ triune test giving effect to those Due Process limitations B a test employed by all courts construing this provision of the federal Constitution B is sedulously set out in Shelton. As to the first two prongs of the test, there is little room for debate: no serious suggestion can be made that the punishments and obloquy that accompany conviction under § 893.13 are anything less than severe.
The final consideration is whether the statute casts its net so broadly as to constitute a trap for innocent conduct, and for those who engage in innocent conduct. As the passages from Justice Holmes referenced supra at ___ and n.5 illustrate, some conduct is so inherently dangerous that the law-maker is justified in Arequire[ing] a man to find out present facts, as well as to foresee future harm, at his peril, although they are not such as would necessarily be inferred from the facts known.@ Perhaps the most common example in Florida law is that of DUI manslaughter, Fla. Stat. § 316.193(3). The perils of drinking and driving are so great that the law is justified in obliging the drunk who gets behind the wheel to submit to punishment for any adverse consequences that follow, whether he intended those consequences or not.
Traditionally the Anglo‑American criminal law has proceeded on the premises that we are each free to make our own choices, and we are each responsible for the choices we make. Even in those rare instances in which the law creates and enforces strict liability crimes, choice is not taken out of the equation entirely; it is simply more attenuated from the consequence that the law seeks to prevent. The defendant who chooses to drink and then chooses to drive is punished for the death or injury that his drunken driving causes, even if he never chose to cause that death or that injury. The corporate officers who choose to profit from traffic in hazardous wastes are punished for the harm caused by those wastes, even if those officers never chose that harm. So, too, the law might punish those who choose to possess or deliver cocaine, even if they never chose to inflict the harm that follows from the use of that cocaine. But § 893.13 does not punish those who choose to possess or deliver cocaine; it punishes those who possess or deliver cocaine, whether they chose to do so or not. And that is the point: Section 893.13 does not punish the drug dealer who possesses or delivers controlled substances. It punishes anyone who possesses or delivers controlled substances B however inadvertently, however accidently, however unintentionally. It reaches beyond those who willfully do wrong, beyond those who negligently do wrong, beyond those who carelessly do wrong, and includes within its wingspan those who meant no wrong. As the Shelton court rightly notes, the simple acts of possession and delivery are part of daily life. Each of us engages in actual possession of all that we have on our person and in our hands, and in constructive possession of all that we own, wherever it may be located.[13] Each of us engages in delivery when we hand a colleague a pen, a friend a cup of coffee, a stranger the parcel she just dropped. What distinguishes innocent possession and innocent delivery from guilty possession and guilty delivery is not merely what we possess, not merely what we deliver, but what we intend. As to that B as to the state of mind that distinguishes non-culpable from culpable possession or delivery B § 893.13 refuses to make a distinction. The speckled flock and the clean are, for its purposes, all one.
The prosecution argues that any due process problem is cured because subsections (2) and (3) of § 893.101 hold open the prospect of a defendant asserting and proving his innocent intent-state as an affirmative defense. Subsection (2) provides that, A[K]nowledge of the illicit nature of a controlled substance is not an element of any offense under this chapter. Lack of knowledge of the illicit nature of a controlled substance is an affirmative defense.@ Subsection (3) provides that:
In those instances in which a defendant asserts the affirmative defense [of lack of knowledge or intent], the possession of a controlled substance, whether actual or constructive, shall give rise to a permissive presumption that the possessor knew of the illicit nature of the substance. ... [I]n those cases where such an affirmative defense is raised, the jury shall be instructed on the permissive presumption.
If the due process problems anent § 893.13 are obviated by the inclusion of a statutory provision pursuant to which the defendant is called upon to assert and establish his innocent intent-state (over a jury instruction that actus reus implies mens rea, and that such an implication is sufficient to justify conviction), I see no reason why all malum prohibitum crimes cannot be recast in the same fashion.[14] But this prosecutorial argument, however deftly made, is simply a different way of saying that the due process test appearing in the Staples line of cases B and indeed the guarantee of due process itself B ought to be abandoned with respect to the very category of prosecutions which that line of cases, and that guarantee, are intended to police. I know of no authority that would justify such a far-ranging departure from traditional understandings of due process; the prosecution cites none; and I decline to invent any. The legislature has power to define crimes and the elements thereof, but it must do so subject to constitutional limitations. The constitutional limitations on the legislature=s power to dispense with a mens rea requirement as to strict-liability crimes are detailed hereinabove. It would be the exaltation of form over substance to hold that those limitations can be dispensed with (or defeated by an end-run) by making a shibboleth of the form of words, Aaffirmative defense.@
V. Conclusion
The immediate effect of the present order is the dismissal of charges against all movants – the overwhelming majority of whom may have known perfectly well that their acts of possession or delivery were contrary to law. Viewed in that light, these movants are unworthy, utterly unworthy, of this windfall exoneration. But as no less a constitutional scholar than Justice Felix Frankfurter observed, AIt is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. It is too easy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end.@ Davis v. United States, 328 U.S. 582, 597 (1946) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).
Like the court in Shelton, I find that Florida Statute § 893.13 is facially violative of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution; and, accordingly, that any prosecution brought pursuant to that statute is subject to dismissal.
SO ORDERED, in chambers in Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida, this 17th day of August, 2011.
[1] I am indebted to Assistant State Attorney Christine Zahralban for submitting, under the same time pressure, a very scholarly memorandum in opposition to the present motions.
[2] Delivery of cocaine in violation of § 893.13 is a second-degree felony, § 893.13(1)(a)(1), Fla. Stat., ordinarily punishable by up to 15 years in prison. § 775.082(3)(c), Fla. Stat. Because Shelton was declared a habitual felony offender pursuant to Fla. Stat. § 775.084, however, his sentence was increased. Shelton, 2011 WL 3236040, at *3.
[3] Apparently Shelton=s constitutional objection to § 893.13 was never adjudicated in the state courts. A[N]either of the [state-court] appellate decisions [i.e., neither the decision on direct appeal nor the decision on appeal of the denial of post-conviction relief] analyzed or discussed the federal constitutional question.@ Shelton, 2011 WL 3236040, at *3. The Shelton opinion returned to this point for emphasis:
AFlorida=s Fifth District Court of Appeal issued decisions affirming the rulings of the trial court without opinion and without a merits-based analysis of the federal constitutional claims, and thus its per curiam affirmances do not constitute an adjudication of [Shelton=s] facial challenge to the constitutionality of Fla. Stat. '893.13 on the merits. (citation omitted) Therefore, no deference is due to the state court=s decision.@
Id. at *4.
[4] As noted supra, Shelton actually received an 18-year sentence because of his status as a habitual felony offender. But even a first-time offender would, under § 893.13, be amenable to sentencing to up to 15 years.
[5] Thus it is a statutory offence in England to abduct a girl under sixteen from the possession of the person having lawful charge of her. If a man does acts which induce a girl under sixteen to leave her parents, he is not chargeable, if he had no reason to know that she was under the lawful charge of her parents, and it may be presumed that he would not be, if he had reasonable cause to believe that she was a boy. But if he knowingly abducts a girl from her parents, he must find out her age at his peril. It is no defense that he had every reason to think her over sixteen. So, under a prohibitory liquor law, it has been held that, if a man sells APlantation Bitters,@ it is no defence that he does not know them to be intoxicating. And there are other examples of the same kind.
Id. at 58-9 (citations omitted). As discussed infra, the myriad forms of conduct proscribed by § 893.13 involve behaviors far more common and far less offensive than, in Justice Holmes=s example, the abduction of young women. Cf. Feliciano v. State, 937 So.2d 818 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006).
[6] Because Shelton was convicted under '893.13, his habeas claim was necessarily directed to the constitutionality or not of that statute; the court had no occasion to consider other, related Florida statutes. Section 893.13 concerns itself with small, Astreet-level@ crimes of drug possession or delivery. Large-scale drug-dealing is regulated by Fla. Stat. § 893.135, the Atrafficking@ statute. Section 893.135 makes an interesting contrast with 893.13; the subsections of the former statute typically condemn and punish one who Aknowingly sells, purchases, manufactures, delivers, or brings into this state,@ a controlled substance. Fla. Stat. § 893.135(1)(a) (e.s.). Thus a Florida prosecutor who seeks the conviction of an international drug kingpin must prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the defendant=s drug-dealing was done knowingly and intentionally. If the same prosecutor seeks the conviction of a student in whose shared room at the frat house a Anickel bag@ of marijuana is found; or of a car-pool commuter in whose SUV a single Valium pill for which he or she has no prescription is found; no such proof need be offered.
[7] Fla. Stat. § 877.03 provides that:
Whoever commits such acts as are of a nature to corrupt the public morals, or outrage the sense of public decency, or affect the peace and quiet of persons who may witness them, or engages in brawling or fighting, or engages in such conduct as to constitute a breach of the peace or disorderly conduct, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree.
[8] At that time the Fifth Circuit included Florida. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit was not constituted until 1981. See http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/about/index.php.
[9] Use by the Florida courts of the trope, Asubstantive due process@ confirms me in my conclusion that the Florida courts were relying on Florida constitutional or common law, rather than federal constitutional law, in their analysis. The term of art Asubstantive due process@ has fallen very much out of fashion in federal jurisprudence. See, e.g., David P. Currie, The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The Second Century 1888 – 1986 287 (1990) (Athe [United States Supreme] Court ha[s] not taken an argument . . . of substantive due process seriously since 1936").
[10] As noted, overbreadth is exclusively a First Amendment doctrine. Vagueness, which is a very different thing, may arise in a variety of contexts. To employ the example favored by generations of law professors to distinguish these two constitutional concepts: A statute providing that, AAll conduct which the legislature is duly and constitutionally empowered to criminalize is hereby made criminal@ would not be overbroad at all, but would be the epitome of vagueness.
[11] A movant invoking Shelton alleges that his Due Process rights are violated, not because he did not know that he was possessing or delivering a controlled substance, but because the prosecution is not required to plead and prove that he knew he was possessing or delivering a controlled substance. That allegation is always true as a matter of law B whether or not a particular defendant had culpable knowledge as a matter of fact. And that being the case, the Salerno requirement is met: no set of facts involving prosecution under § 893.13 can be conjured up as to which a Shelton claim would not be applicable. Thus it makes no difference for purposes of applying Salerno that in many, no doubt the prohibitive majority of, cases the defendants knew perfectly well that they were possessing or delivering controlled substances.
[12] But see Fla. Stat. § 933.19, adopting Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925); and '810.015, rejecting Delgado v. State, 776 So.2d 233 (Fla. 2000) and other case authorities.
[13] As to the crime of possession, and particularly as to the crime of constructive possession, the due process problem resulting from the failure of the statute to require an intent-state is particularly vexing. The Aactus reus@ of possession is not an act at all, but a state of being. I may but need not act to take possession of an object; but having taken possession of it, I can and do continue to possess it, without doing any act at all. Inaction will result in my continued possession. Action is required to divest myself of the object, and thus terminate my possession. And constructive possession requires neither action nor even a state of being; the law presumes the existence of a state of being upon the basis of which it declares me in possession of something. Thus a crime of constructive possession under '893.13 can be committed by one who neither intends to possess nor acts to acquire possession. For the proposition that courts have a due process obligation to be vigilant against conviction upon such an evanescent predicate, see United States v. Herron, 567 F.2d 510, 520-521 and esp. at n. 7 (D.C. Cir. 1977) (Bazelon, C.J., concurring).
[14] And why stop with mala prohibita? At common law, burglary consisted of trespass to a home at night, with intent to commit a felony therein. William Blackstone, IV Commentaries on the Laws of England 224 (Univ. of Chicago ed. 1979) (1769) (citing Sir Edward Coke, 3 Institutes 63). Although the common law allowed some wiggle-room regarding the requirement of a home, Blackstone at 224 (Ait does not seem absolutely necessary, that it should in all cases be a ... house@), it was adamant on the requirement of intent. AAs to the intent, it is clear, that such breaking and entry must be with a felonious intent, otherwise it is only a trespass.@ Id. at 227. If § 893.13, taken together with § 893.101, is constitutional, why could not burglary be defined and prosecuted in the same fashion? The prosecution, in its case in chief, would need to prove only a trespass; the defendant could then go forward on an affirmative defense, e.g., that he entered the dwelling or structure not to rape or kill, but to seek shelter from the elements in what he thought was an abandoned house, or for some other innocent (or at least non-felonious) purpose; and the jury would be instructed that the fact of trespass alone gives rise to a presumption of intent to burgle sufficient to justify conviction. By a parity of reasoning, intent could be read out of all crimes, and rendered no part of the criminal law.
Then the same legerdemain could be worked upon the requirement of actus reus. Homicide will be redefined to consist of, Abeing found within X feet@ or yards, or miles, Aof a dead body, within Y minutes@ or hours, or days, Aof the time of death. It is an affirmative defense to this crime that the defendant did not wield the instrument of death. If the defendant presents such an affirmative defense, however, the jury shall be instructed that the defendant=s presence within the requisite distance from the decedent within the requisite time-period gives rise to a permissive presumption that the defendant did in fact wield the instrument of death, which presumption shall be sufficient to justify conviction.@ Oh brave new world!
