Jackson v. Hall
| Decision Date | 24 July 1957 |
| Citation | 97 So.2d 1 |
| Parties | George McStay JACKSON III, Appellant, v. Amos HALL, Sheriff Appellee |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Davis, Kirsch & Gorman, Ft. Lauderdale, for appellant.
Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., Jos. P. Manners and David U. Tumin, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.
We are here concerned with the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Law, Ch. 29901, Laws of Florida, Acts of 1955, appearing as Ch. 88, Fla.Stat.1955, F.S.A.--specifically with the interpretation of Sec. 88.071 thereof.
Our Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Law is based on the Act of the same title approved by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1950, as amended in 1952. The purposes of the Act 'are to improve and extend by reciprocal legislation the enforcement of duties of support and to make uniform the law with respect thereto.' Sec. 88.021. Our Sec. 88.061 and Sec. 88.071 are the same as Sec. 5 and Sec. 6 of the Act approved by the Commissioners and labelled by them 'Part II--Criminal Enforcement'. The Act also provides for the civil enforcement of the duty of support in a simplified two-state procedure at a minimum of expense and trouble to the obligee, or to the state if the obligee is indigent. See Thompson v. Thompson, Fla.1957, 93 So.2d 90.
Sec. 88.061 provides for the interstate rendition of a person to a demanding state to answer a criminal charge of failing to provide for the support of a dependent 'although the person whose surrender is demanded was not in the demanding state at the time of the commission of the crime and although he had not fled therefrom.' The particular section of the Act here in question, Sec. 88.071, reads as follows:
'Any obligor contemplated by § 88.061, who submits to the jurisdiction of the court of such other state and complies with the court's order of support, shall be relieved of extradition for desertion or nonsupport entered in the courts of this state during the period of such compliance.'
The point to be decided on this appeal is whether this particular provision of the Uniform Act is available to an obligor to obtain relief from extradition proceedings brought under the criminal enforcement provisions of the Act in a case where the obligee-resident of the demanding state has not initiated proceedings under the civil enforcement provisions of the Act. The question arose in habeas corpus proceedings filed in the power court by the appellant, a resident of Broward County, Florida, to obtain relief from extradition to the State of Illinois to answer a criminal charge of nonsupport of his minor child. Illinois has adopted the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Law, including a provision identical to Sec. 88.071, supra.
The trial judge was of the opinion that Sec. 88.071, supra () 'is applicable only to cases wherein an order for support under the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Law has been promulgated by the demanding state, and that the demanding state has the option of proceeding to extradite the defendant for criminal prosecution in the demanding state.' He thereupon discharged the writ and remanded the appellant to the custody of the Sheriff for delivery to the Illinois authorities. This appeal followed.
The trial judge based his order on the decision of the California Supreme Court in Ex parte Floyd, 1954, 43 Cal.2d 379, 273 P.2d 820, 823. In the Floyd case, it was held that the jurisdiction of the court of the responding state to enter a support order stems from the initial civil proceedings commenced by the obligee in the obligee's state of residence, and that the provision of the Act in question did not authorize the obligor to initiate such a proceeding in a court of the state of the obligor's residence. Support for this construction was said to be found in the provision of the statute defining 'responding state' as 'any state in which any proceeding pursuant to the proceeding in the initiating state is or may be commenced.' West's Ann.Code Civ.Proc. § 1653(3). It was also said that, if the view of the obligor in that case were to be sustained, the obligor could obtain immunity from extradition cheaply because 'without evidence of the conditions, circumstances and needs of the obligee before the court, insufficient or token support payments might suffice to immunize the obligor from extradition.' The California court concluded that '[w]hile either or both courses of action [civil or criminal] may be pursued, the election lies wholly with the demanding state and the obligee; and the obligor may not independently institute an action in the responding state for the purpose of defeating the extradition process.'
We find ourselves unable to agree with the California court's interpretation of the Act. The whole purpose of the Act, in both its criminal and civil enforcement aspects, is to compel the obligor to support his dependents and not primarily to subject him to criminal punishment for a past offense. See Commonwealth ex rel. Shaffer v. Shaffer, 1954, 175 Pa.Super. 100, 103 A.2d 430, 42 A.L.R.2d 761. This being so, we can find no valid reason for construing the Act as giving to the demanding state and the obligee the option of requiring the obligor to answer a criminal charge and be punished in a state in which he may never have resided or even have been present, rather than compelling him to perform his support obligations; and in our opinion that interpretation made by the California court in Ex parte Floyd, supra, does not carry out the essential purposes of the Act nor is it required by the express terms of the Act.
The criminal enforcement provisions of the Act (Sec. 88.061 and Sec. 88.071, supra) nowhere refer to the 'initiating' and the 'responding' states, as in the civil enforcement provisions of the Act. Sec. 88.061 merely provides for the demand, or surrender, by the Governor of this state of a person charged with the crime of failing to provide for the support of a person in this, or the other, state. Sec. 88.071 does not refer to 'any obligor contemplated by this chapter or this Act'; it refers to 'any obligor contemplated by § 88.061' (emphasis added), that is, any person...
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Helmick v. Helmick
...but can be defeated if the obligor is willing to comply with any order of support entered by the responding state. See, e.g., Jackson v. Hall, 97 So.2d 1 (Fla.1957). This section is not involved in the instant case.22 §§ 88.081-88.311, Fla.Stat. (1981).23 §§ 88.321-88.371, Fla.Stat. (1981).......
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State v. Monroe, A--112
...husband and father to support his dependents and not primarily to subject him to criminal punishment for a past offense. Jackson v. Hall, 97 So.2d 1 (Fla.Sup.Ct.1957). The State is only incidentally interested in the prosecution under the statute. People v. Elbert, 287 Ill. 458, 122 N.E. 81......
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Bjorgo v. Bjorgo
...in a situation such as this, are those of the responding state (Maine) and not the laws of the initiating state (New York).' In Jackson v. Hall, Fla., 97 So.2d 1, the Supreme Court of Florida 'And the duty of support enforced under the Act is not necessarily that imposed by the law of the i......
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Bjorgo v. Bjorgo, A--10906
...state in which he is found or in which he was present during the period for which support is sought. The Florida decisions in Jackson v. Hall, 97 So.2d 1 (1957) and Clarke v. Blackburn, Fla.App., 151 So.2d 325 (1963) grew out of proceedings by the states of Illinois and North Carolina, resp......