Brown v. State
| Decision Date | 20 September 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-03916,93-03916 |
| Parties | 20 Fla. L. Weekly D2175 Robert Hilton BROWN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Diane Buerger, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Joseph Hwan-Yul Lee, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
Robert Brown appeals the trial court's denial of his motions to dismiss numerous charges on statute of limitations grounds. Because we reject the state's claim that the statutes of limitation were tolled while Brown was incarcerated out of state on unrelated charges, we reverse.
In 1983, the state filed four informations against Brown charging him with various counts of theft and forgery alleged to have occurred between November 3, 1982, and January 21, 1983. In April 1983, a capias was issued in each of the cases which included a notation that Brown was out of state in a federal prison. It is undisputed that the state made the decision not to extradite Brown and not to place any detainers on him.
Brown was released from federal prison in November 1991 and came to Florida in August 1992. Shortly thereafter he was stopped for a traffic check, and it was discovered that there were active warrants for his arrest in Florida. He was arrested and placed in a county jail. The next day he was arrested by federal marshals for violating his parole. Brown then spent the next two and a half months in Florida jails before being taken back to federal prison in Georgia. When Brown was again released from federal prison in August 1993, he turned himself in to Florida authorities. On October 12, 1993, Brown filed motions to dismiss the four cases, claiming that prosecution was barred because the applicable statutes of limitation had expired. After the motions were denied, Brown entered a plea of no contest, reserving the right to appeal the denial of the motions.
The statutes of limitation that apply to the various charges filed against Brown all provide that prosecution must be "commenced" within a specified number of years. 1 A prosecution is commenced when "either an indictment or information is filed, provided the capias, summons, or other process issued on such indictment or information is executed without unreasonable delay." § 775.15(5), Fla.Stat. (1993). Thus, the filing of an information and the issuance of a capias do not, alone, commence prosecution. The capias must also be executed without unreasonable delay. State v. Miller, 581 So.2d 641 (Fla. 2d DCA), review dismissed, 584 So.2d 999 (Fla.1991). The word "executed" means completion of service on the defendant. State v. Fields, 505 So.2d 1336 (Fla.1987). Section 775.15(5) further provides that "[i]n determining what is reasonable, inability to locate the defendant after diligent search or the defendant's absence from the state shall be considered."
In this case, each information was filed and each capias was issued well within the limitation periods. Therefore, the question presented is whether the capiases were "executed without unreasonable delay." The burden is on the state to demonstrate that the delay was not unreasonable. State v. King, 282 So.2d 162 (Fla.1973). Florida courts have defined "unreasonable delay" through a case-by-case examination of whether the state was diligent in its efforts to execute a capias in order to bring a defendant before the court within the statutory limit. Pre-arrest delays have been found to be unreasonable where the state made little or no attempt to find the defendant or, knowing his location, made no attempt to serve a capias on him. See Fields, 505 So.2d 1336 (); Bragenzer v. State, 582 So.2d 142 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991) (); Walker v. State, 543 So.2d 353 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989) (); Colvin v. State, 541 So.2d 724 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989) ().
Perhaps more apposite is Miller, 581 So.2d 641, in which the state argued that the delay in executing a capias was not unreasonable because the defendant was out of the state for a period of time. At the time the defendant left the state, there were no charges pending against him. After being notified that charges had been filed against him, he waived extradition and agreed to return to Florida. However, Florida refused to go to Indiana and pick him up and, therefore, he was released by Indiana officials. This court found that neither the defendant's absence from the state nor his conduct prevented the state from commencing the prosecution within the required time period and concluded that when "the absence from the state is not the fault of the defendant and does not result in preventing prosecution, the time periods of statutes of limitations are not tolled." 581 So.2d at 642.
As in Fields, Colvin and Miller, the state knew where Brown was but deliberately made no attempt to execute the outstanding capiases within the limitation periods. And, as in Miller, neither the defendant's absence from the state nor his conduct prevented the state from commencing prosecution.
The state contends that these cases do not apply here because none involve a defendant such as Brown who was out of state in another sovereign's custody on an unrelated charge. Under these circumstances, the state suggests that the applicable statute of limitations should be tolled and that the focus of the "executed without unreasonable delay" inquiry should be limited to the time within which a capias is executed after a defendant is released from custody. At the hearing on the motions to dismiss, the state argued:
I think the issues in this case boil down to, does the state have an affirmative obligation to extradite somebody from another state or from federal custody simply because they know where he's at. And I'm not aware of any case law or rule that would provide that.
We oftentimes in many cases make the determination that we are not going to extradite somebody. If they come back and get arrested on the warrant, if they come back to Florida and happen to get arrested, then the case is going to be picked back up. That's exactly what happened in this case. The state does not have an affirmative duty to go and extradite somebody from either the federal system or from some other state.
Thus, the real question raised by the state's position in this case is whether a statute of limitations continues to run while a defendant is in the custody of another sovereign when the state knows the location of the defendant. We hold that it does.
Time limitations upon criminal prosecutions are solely creatures of statute. The statutory period of limitation begins to run on the day after the offense is committed and runs until the prosecution is commenced, unless some intervening act occurs to interrupt it. William J. Appel, Annotation, Issuance or Service of State-Court Arrest Warrant, Summons, Citation, or Other Process as Tolling Criminal Statute of Limitations, 71 ALR 4th 554 (1989). Statutes of limitation are to be liberally construed in favor of the accused. Reino v. State, 352 So.2d 853, 860 (Fla.1977). Generally, the running of a statute of limitations is tolled only for reasons specified in the statute. 1 Wharton's Criminal Law § 184. Section 775.15 contains no provision that tolls the period of limitation when a defendant is in the custody of another sovereign, 2 and we find no language in the statute that will authorize a court-made...
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