Cote v. State
Decision Date | 30 August 2001 |
Docket Number | No. SC00-1327.,SC00-1327. |
Citation | 793 So.2d 907 |
Parties | Ronald COTE, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. |
Court | Florida Supreme Court |
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Richard P. Albertine, Jr., Assistant Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, FL, for Petitioner.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Robert J. Krauss, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Chief of Criminal Law, and Timothy A. Freeland, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL, for Respondent.
We have for review Cote v. State, 760 So.2d 162 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000), which expressly and directly conflicts with N.T. v. State, 682 So.2d 688 (Fla. 5th DCA 1996). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. We quash Cote, approve N.T., and hold that a juvenile may not be punished by both criminal contempt and for a violation of community control based upon the same underlying conduct.
The Second District in Cote reflects the proceedings to date:
Cote, 760 So.2d at 163. On appeal, Cote renewed his contention that the subsequent proceeding in the felony division violated double jeopardy principles. The Second District rejected his appeal and concluded that the juvenile division of the circuit court did not have jurisdiction to invoke contempt sanctions, and hence its prosecution for criminal contempt was void. Judge Fulmer disagreed with this analysis and dissented.
In N.T., the child was placed on community control for the commission of grand theft. When N.T. violated the conditions of a second community control order, he was successfully prosecuted both for a violation of community control and for indirect criminal contempt.
On appeal, the issue was framed as "whether N.T.'s prosecution for both violation of community control and indirect criminal contempt violated his constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy." N.T., 682 So.2d at 689. The Fifth District agreed with N.T. and, applying the "same elements" test,1 the court explained that where two prosecutions are based on the same conduct and the prosecutions contain the same elements, double jeopardy bars the successive prosecution. Citing State v. Woodland, 602 So.2d 554 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992), and other cases, the Fifth District found the contempt charge to have been subsumed within the violation of community control, thus precluding an additional prosecution for criminal contempt. See id. at 689-90.
The State contends that the holding in N.T. should be distinguished from the circumstances presented in Cote because only one division of the circuit court was involved in N.T. whereas in Cote two distinct divisions prosecuted the juvenile for his conduct, and the juvenile division lacked jurisdiction when it punished him for criminal contempt. We disagree. Rather, we agree with the analysis set out in Judge Fulmer's dissent explaining that in both instances the court was operating with circuit court jurisdiction.
As analyzed in the dissenting opinion below, this Court has decided related cases involving similar circumstances. See State v. Griffith, 675 So.2d 911 (Fla.1996)
; State v. King, 426 So.2d 12 (Fla.1982). In those cases we held a proceeding in the juvenile division is merely voidable, not void, for purposes of adjudication of a juvenile who was direct-filed but upon whom juvenile sanctions were imposed. Judge Fulmer explained the effect of those decisions:
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