Casiano v. State
| Decision Date | 28 January 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. SC19-1622,SC19-1622 |
| Citation | 310 So.3d 910 |
| Parties | Juan C. CASIANO, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Benjamin Eisenberg, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, Florida, for Petitioner
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, Celia Terenzio, Senior Assistant Attorney General, and Rachael Kaiman, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, Florida, for Respondent
We accepted review of Casiano v. State , 280 So. 3d 105 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019), on the grounds that the decision of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Casiano expressly and directly conflicts with that of the First District Court of Appeal in Johnson v. State , 260 So. 3d 502 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018), on the issue of whether a defendant's completion of sentence during the pendency of his appeal renders moot his challenge to a state prison sentence erroneously imposed pursuant to a trial court's dangerousness finding under section 775.082(10), Florida Statutes (2019) (subsection (10)).1 Because the district courts reached separate conclusions as to whether a defendant's potential designation as a prison releasee reoffender under section 775.082(9)(a) 1.2 is a sufficient collateral legal consequence precluding dismissal of such an appeal as moot, we have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. For the reasons that follow, we resolve the narrow conflict issue by holding that a defendant's potential designation as a prison releasee reoffender under section 775.082(9)(a) 1. is not a sufficient collateral legal consequence to preclude dismissal of the appeal as moot. We therefore approve the Fourth District's decision in Casiano and disapprove the First District's decision in Johnson .
Juan Casiano entered a partially negotiated no contest plea to several driving offenses. Since Casiano's scoresheet reflected 21.9 sentence points, the statutory maximum penalty was a nonstate prison sanction of up to one year under subsection (10). However, contrary to this Court's decision in Brown v. State , 260 So. 3d 147, 150 (Fla. 2018), the trial court sentenced Casiano to one year and one day in state prison, followed by forty-seven months of probation, based on the court's independent factual finding that Casiano could present a danger to the public if subject only to a nonstate prison sanction. On appeal, Casiano challenged the incarcerative portion of his sentence, arguing that the trial court erred in making the dangerousness finding. In Gaymon v. State , 288 So. 3d 1087, 1093 (Fla. 2020), we held that "the proper remedy for harmful error resulting from the court, not the jury, finding the fact of dangerousness under [subsection (10)] is to remand for resentencing with instructions to empanel a jury to make such a determination, if the State seeks that finding in the defendant's case." Although the Fourth District concluded that the trial court erred when it made the dangerousness finding, it did not address whether the error was harmful. Rather, the district court dismissed Casiano's appeal as moot because he had completed his prison sentence, rejecting Casiano's argument that his potential future designation as a prison releasee reoffender under section 775.082(9)(a) 1. was a sufficient collateral legal consequence precluding dismissal of his appeal as moot.3
Section 775.082(9)(a) 1. defines "prison releasee reoffender" as "any defendant who commits, or attempts to commit" any qualifying offense—as enumerated in the statute—within three years after a certain event, described in the statute as follows:
being released from a state correctional facility operated by the Department of Corrections or a private vendor, a county detention facility following incarceration for an offense for which the sentence pronounced was a prison sentence, or a correctional institution of another state, the District of Columbia, the United States, any possession or territory of the United States, or any foreign jurisdiction, following incarceration for an offense for which the sentence is punishable by more than 1 year in this state.
Under the plain language of the statute, a defendant's status as a prison releasee reoffender (PRR) only attaches upon the commission or attempted commission of one of the offenses enumerated in the statute within three years after the defendant's release "from a [specified facility] following incarceration for an offense for which the sentence is punishable by more than 1 year in this state." § 775.082(9)(a) 1. As the Third District Court of Appeal has explained, future sentence enhancement under section 775.082(9)(a) 1. is contingent "first on the defendant's voluntary decision to commit another crime; second, on whether the new crime is one capable of having enhanced sentencing; and third, on the prosecutor's discretionary decision whether to seek enhancement." Major v. State , 790 So. 2d 550, 552 (Fla. 3d DCA 2001). Because Casiano argues that his potential PRR status is a sufficient collateral legal consequence of his state prison sentence which precludes dismissal of his appeal as moot, we briefly explain the governing constitutional text and background to the mootness doctrine.
Article V, section 1 of the Florida Constitution vests "[t]he judicial power" in Florida's courts, and Florida's courts, including its appellate courts, reserve the exercise of judicial power for cases involving actual controversies. Sarasota-Fruitville Drainage Dist. v. Certain Lands Within Said Dist. , 80 So. 2d 335, 336 (Fla. 1955) ; see Dep't of Revenue v. Kuhnlein , 646 So. 2d 717, 720-21 (Fla. 1994) (). This limitation on the exercise of judicial power to justiciable controversies is rooted in judicial adherence to the doctrine of separation of powers. See Ervin v. City of N. Mia. Beach , 66 So. 2d 235, 236 (Fla. 1953) ; see also art. II, § 3, Fla. Const.
The mootness doctrine is "a corollary to the limitation on the exercise of judicial power to the decision of justiciable controversies." Merkle v. Guardianship of Jacoby , 912 So. 2d 595, 600 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005). In general, an appellate court will dismiss a case if the issues raised have become moot. Godwin v. State , 593 So. 2d 211, 212 (Fla. 1992). We have defined an issue as "moot" "when the controversy has been so fully resolved that a judicial determination can have no actual effect." Id. However, we have recognized an exception to this general rule for situations in which "collateral legal consequences that affect the rights of a party flow from the issue to be determined." Id .4 In contrast to a challenge to an underlying conviction, a sentence generally cannot be challenged after it has been fully served and has expired because "any sentencing issue is moot thereafter." Raines v. State , 14 So. 3d 244, 246 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009).
As previously explained in footnote 3, supra , we write only to address Casiano's argument that the general rule of mootness should not be applied to his fully served sentence due to the possibility of a future sentencing enhancement as a PRR. With respect to that issue, we agree with the Fourth District that Casiano's potential PRR status is too speculative to be considered a collateral legal consequence of his unlawful sentence. While Casiano's release from the Department of Corrections following incarceration could potentially make him subject to PRR designation, he would still need to commit or attempt to commit one of the offenses enumerated in the statute within three years of his release for that alleged collateral consequence of his unlawful sentence to begin to materialize. As the record does not reflect that Casiano has committed or attempted to commit an offense enumerated in the statute or that he currently faces sentencing as a PRR, a judicial determination "can have no actual effect." Godwin , 593 So. 2d at 212.
However, Casiano argues that our characterization of potential sentencing enhancements for future criminal offenses as "collateral consequences" of a plea or conviction in State v. Dickey , 928 So. 2d 1193, 1195 (Fla. 2006), should drive our resolution of the conflict issue. Dickey is inapposite. We did not define potential sentencing enhancements as "collateral consequences" in the context of mootness; rather, we addressed a certified question of great public importance, namely "whether allegations of affirmative misadvice by trial counsel on the sentence-enhancing consequences of a defendant's plea for future criminal behavior in an otherwise facially sufficient motion are cognizable as an ineffective assistance of counsel claim." Id. at 1194. We answered the certified question in the negative, holding that "a claim that counsel affirmatively misadvised a defendant about the collateral effect of future sentence-enhancing potential does not meet Strickland’ s5 requirements for a valid claim of ineffective assistance of counsel." Dickey , 928 So. 2d at 1198. Moreover, while we did refer to potential sentencing enhancements for future criminal offenses "as collateral consequences" of entering a plea, the defendant in Dickey specifically alleged in his postconviction motion "that his Alabama sentence was enhanced based on his prior Florida conviction." Id. at 1195. Accordingly, Casiano's situation is both legally and factually distinguishable from that of the defendant in Dickey .
Although Casiano acknowledges that the United States Supreme Court's decisions interpreting article III,...
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