Every week we check the appellate court decisions for the prior week to see whether there are any decisions impacting registration laws. It seems that for a while, almost every week there are new appellate decisions on the same Double Jeopardy.
Last year, in Lee v. State, 258 So. 3d 1297 (Fla. 2018), the Florida Supreme Court held that “to determine whether multiple convictions of solicitation of a minor, unlawful use of a two-way communications device, and traveling after solicitation of a minor are based upon the same conduct for purposes of double jeopardy, the reviewing court should consider only the charging document.” In other words; if the charging document sets forth a single course of conduct, you can’t be charged with multiple offenses (from the same course of conduct) – that’s Double Jeopardy.
Since we’ve been highlighting this case in multiple posts since it was decided, hopefully anybody who thinks they might benefit from this decision (or who has a family member currently incarcerated who might), has already contacted their criminal defense attorney. The point of this post is how despite the decision, people still have to bring their cases to an appeal court. Just last week, Florida’s First District Court of Appeals had to reverse TWO cases; Sherman v. State (1D13-4464) and Dygart v. State (1D13-4977).
An appeal is often a costly and time consuming process. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes necessary.
Years ago when I was on active duty in the Navy we used to have ‘What If?’ drills to prepare us for various outcomes of various situations. Maybe our Florida legislators need to establish ‘What If’ committees to evaluate each proposed law to make sure that it addresses all potential questions that it might generate. Maybe then our laws would be something we could use rather than something we could argue over. Amendment 4 for example. I am always amazed how something can be lawful or ‘constitutional’ in one part of the country or state and unlawful or un-‘constitutional’ in another part. Aren’t we all citizens of the same country or state? This I am afraid is what happens when we load our government with too many lawyers, each with personal opinions, few of which are looking out for constituents. Could it be, the more laws the more business?
if equal protection under the law was true:
any person with more than 1 pack of drugs would be charged with trafficking for each bag/pack of drugs or any person with more than one image of child porn should only be charged 1 time for them all not for each one.
If this is actually true and factually one should be able to argue that the 100 or 1000 illegal images were downloaded all at the same time and they should only be charged once.
or maybe I’m just an idiot!
Everyone needs to keep in mind that a decision from a District Appeals court is binding in that district only. A ruling from the Florida Supreme Court is binding on all lower courts in the state. I’m NOT being a wet blanket, only trying to help keep everybody informed.
These DCA reversals are all the result of a Florida Supreme Court decision, as indicated in the post. If you read both of these opinions, it’s clear that the DCA disagreed with the Florida Supreme Court and only vacated the excessive convictions because they were ordered to by the Supreme Court.
When it comes to across the board application of laws, this nation is anything but united. I have yet to figure out how something can be un-constitutional in one jurisdiction and constitutional in another. Could it be that we have gotten used to ‘throwing’ around the word ‘constitutional’ so much, that we have totally lost contact with what it really means? Roger is correct in his analysis.
You just nailed it Capt.
It may be unconstitutional under a state’s constitution and not the US.
So we are sort of the “un-United States of America”. Nobody is in charge and everybody is in charge. I have often wondered when was the last time a judge made a decision after having read the Constitution? More and more it appears “constitutional” is based on the judge’s opinion rather than the written “Constitution”. Has our justice system ventured into the ‘gray area’?