Clark v. State, 1D01-1440.
Citation | 823 So.2d 809 |
Decision Date | 01 July 2002 |
Docket Number | No. 1D01-1440.,1D01-1440. |
Parties | Octavious Monshovia CLARK, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
Court | Court of Appeal of Florida (US) |
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender; Glen P. Gifford, Assistant Public Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellant. Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General; James W. Rogers, Bureau Chief Criminal Appeals, Elizabeth F. Duffy, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
Convicted of burglary of a dwelling with assault or battery, Octavious Monshovia Clark contends that he was unlawfully sentenced as a habitual violent felony offender because the predicate offense the trial court relied on was a North Carolina conviction for armed robbery. He argues that out-of-state convictions cannot be used as predicate felonies justifying habitual violent felony offender sentencing for subsequent offenses in Florida. He also argues that the state failed to prove that the North Carolina offense was an equivalent of the Florida offense of robbery. We reject both arguments and affirm.
§ 775.084(1)(e), Fla. Stat. (2000). On the other hand, a habitual violent felony offender is defined as an offender who, inter alia, "has previously been convicted of a felony ... and one or more of such convictions was for ... [r]obbery." § 775.084(1)(b)1.c., Fla. Stat. (2000). The definition of a habitual violent felony offender does not include the phrase "or other qualified offenses." On the strength of this omission, the appellant asserts that the Legislature did not intend that out-of-state convictions serve as predicates for sentencing habitual violent felony offenders.
But this argument ignores both contrary precedent and legislative history, which accounts fully for the wording of the various provisions of section 775.084(1), without offering any support for appellant's construction of the statute. In 1988, the Legislature amended section 775.084 to require, as a predicate for habitual felony offender sentencing, proof that two prior felonies had been committed in Florida. See Ch. 88-131, § 6, at 706, Laws of Fla. ( ). See Parrish v. State, 571 So.2d 97, 98 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990)
() .
The 1988 enactment also created the category of habitual violent felony offender sentencing, at issue here. See Ch. 88-131, § 6, at 707, Laws of Fla. Unlike the habitual felony offender provision, the habitual violent felony offender provision contained no language limiting predicate felonies to felonies committed within Florida. Relying on this distinction, the Fifth District ruled that section 775.084(1)(b), Florida Statutes (Supp.1988), authorized using an out-of-state conviction as a predicate qualifying a defendant as a habitual violent felony offender. See Canales v. State, 571 So.2d 87, 88-89 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990)
. The court reasoned:
Id. at 88. See Kirby v. State, 625 So.2d 51, 56 (Fla. 3d DCA 1993)
(). See also Massey v. State, 651 So.2d 833, 834 (Fla. 5th DCA 1995); Richardson v. State, 622 So.2d 1061, 1062 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993); Bunch v. State, 622 So.2d 525, 526 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993); Dotson v. State, 585 So.2d 390, 390 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991). The decision in Canales antedates enactment of the violent career criminal and the three-time violent felony offender provisions.
When a court has interpreted a statute, particularly one amended as frequently as this one, and the Legislature does nothing to suggest that the interpretation does not effectuate legislative intent, there is ordinarily no good reason to alter the interpretation. See State v. Hall, 641 So.2d 403, 405 (Fla.1994)
() ; B & L Servs. v. Coach USA, 791 So.2d 1138, 1142 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001) (). In 1989, moreover, the Legislature amended section 775.084(1)(a), the habitual felony offender provision, to allow the use of out-of-state convictions. See generally Ch. 89-280, § 1, at 1632-33, Laws of Fla. The Legislature had no need to amend section 775.084(1)(b), pertaining to habitual violent felony offenders, at the same time because language limiting the use of out-of-state convictions never appeared in section 775.084(1)(b).
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