Jollie v. State

• Decision Date: 30 July 1981
• Docket Number: No. 59158,59158
• Citation: 405 So.2d 418
• Parties: Stacy Clyde JOLLIE, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 418

405 So.2d 418

Stacy Clyde JOLLIE, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.

No. 59158.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 30, 1981.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 24, 1981.

Robert J. Buonauro, Orlando, for petitioner.

No appearance for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

This case involves the legal issue we recently resolved in Tascano v. State, 393 So.2d 540 (Fla. 1980), and a procedural issue regarding the jurisdiction of this Court which requires clarification in light of the 1980 amendment to article V, section 3, of the Florida Constitution. It is the latter issue which commands our attention here, and for which a recitation of the history of this case and of conflicting decisions on the Tascano issue is essential.

On January 2, 1980, the Fifth District Court of Appeal addressed a legal issue concerning requested jury instructions on which disparate views were then held among the district courts of the state. In Murray v. State, 378 So.2d 111 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980), a majority of the panel court concluded that this Court's rule on requested instructions was mandatory. A contrary view had been expressed by a panel of judges in the First District Court of Appeal in Tascano v. State, 363 So.2d 405 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978). Despite their conclusion on the mandatory nature of the rule, however, the panel majority in Murray affirmed his conviction on the ground that the failure to give requested instructions in his situation was harmless error. Judge Orfinger agreed with the Tascano judges that the Court's rule was optional, for which reason he concurred in the court's affirmance of Murray's conviction.

Other cases involving this very legal issue were pending in the Fifth District. Shortly after the Murray decision was published, the court entered orders summarily disposing of three of them-Knight v. State, 379 So.2d 1017 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980), Allen v. State, 380 So.2d 541 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980), and Jollie v. State, 381 So.2d 351 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980). Each of these dispositions read simply:

"Affirmed. See Murray v. State (citation)."

Petitions for certiorari were filed here in Murray, Knight, and Allen before April 1, 1980. A petition for review was filed in Jollie after that date. The intervention of the 1980 amendment placed Mr. Jollie in a different position than Messrs. Murray, Knight, or Allen with respect to the possibility of Supreme Court review. That fortuity, it will be seen, has created the procedural problem we now face.

We agreed to review the First District's Tascano decision, and we eventually declared that our rule regarding requested jury instructions is indeed mandatory, quashing the district court's contrary decision. Tascano v. State, 393 So.2d 540 (Fla. 1980). We accepted jurisdiction in Murray on the basis of direct jurisdictional conflict. The Murray decision conflicted on its face with the First District's decision in Tascano by holding that the rule was mandatory rather than directory and conflicted with the result we reached in Tascano because it negated the mandatory effect of the rule by applying the harmless error doctrine. We have consequently this day, by separate opinion, quashed the district court's opinion in Murray on the basis of Tascano, concluding that the harmless error rule should not apply. Murray v. State, 403 So.2d 417 (Fla. 1981). We have also accepted jurisdiction in Knight and Allen under the 1972 constitutional provision and granted relief in accordance with our decisions in Tascano and Murray. Knight v. State, 401 So.2d 1333 (Fla. 1981).

Petitioner Jollie's treatment by the Fifth District Court of Appeal was identical to that of Allen and Knight. Jollie, however, became the victim of happenstance, delayed processing through the district court resulting in his case reaching this Court after the effective date of the 1980 constitutional amendment limiting Supreme Court jurisdiction.

Under our interpretation of the 1980 amendment, this Court will not reexamine the case referenced in a "citation PCA" to determine whether the contents of that case now conflict with other appellate decisions. Dodi Publishing Co. v. Editorial America, S.A., 385 So.2d 1369 (Fla. 1980). In a similar light, if the referenced case is a final decision and not pending review in this Court, we will not reexamine the case referenced even when the district court filed that case contemporaneously with the citation PCA. Robles Del Mar, Inc. v. Town of Indian River Shores, 385 So.2d 1371 (Fla. 1980). The question which we must now confront is in what posture we should place a citation PCA where the cited case is either pending review in this Court or has previously been reversed by this Court. Restated, we must decide whether Mr. Jollie should be denied relief because he was the recipient of such a decision after the effective date of the 1980 amendment.

The quartet of Tascano-related cases from the Fifth District Court of Appeal presents the problem in sharp focus. We here endeavor to deal with this situation in a forthright manner in order to provide clear directions for the avoidance of future difficulties in like situations. This can be done without undermining the intent and purpose of the 1980 reforms.

Justice Thomas, the father of Florida's district courts of appeal and the strongest advocate of the principle that the district courts "were meant to be courts of final appellate jurisdiction," said this Court had no authority to "dig into a record to determine whether or not a per curiam affirmance by a district court of appeal conflicts." See Lake v. Lake, 103 So.2d 639, 642-43 (Fla. 1958).

If in a particular case an opinion is rendered by a district court of appeal that prima facie conflicts with the decision of another district court of appeal or of the Supreme Court on the same point of law, the writ of certiorari may issue, and after study, may be discharged, or the decision of the district court of appeal may be quashed or modified to the end that any conflict may be reconciled.

Id. at 643 (emphasis ours). This rule applies equally well under the 1980 amendment as it did under the amendment's 1956 predecessor.

Prior to the 1980 amendment, a PCA decision which referenced another district court decision that this Court had reversed or quashed, was prima facie grounds for conflict jurisdiction. This long-standing policy decision was in effect well before the "record proper" doctrine was conceived and adopted in Foley v. Weaver Drugs, 177 So.2d 221 (Fla. 1965). The reasoning behind that policy decision continues to have validity. Common sense dictates that this Court must acknowledge its own public record actions in dispensing with cases before it. We thus conclude that a district court of appeal per curiam opinion which cites as controlling authority a decision that is either pending review in or has been reversed by this Court continues to constitute prima facie express conflict and allows this Court to exercise its jurisdiction.

The situation presented in this cause ordinarily applies only to a limited class of cases. The problem arises from the practical situation which faces all appellate courts at one time or another-that is, how to dispose conveniently of multiple cases involving a single legal issue without disparately affecting the various litigants. Traditional practice in dealing with a common legal issue in multiple cases, both in district courts and here, has been to author an opinion for one case and summarily reference that opinion on all the others. Being time- and laborsaving for a court, that practice should not be discouraged.

We believe, however, that there can be improvement in the procedure through which district courts can isolate for possible review in this Court those decisions which merely reference to a lead opinion, as we now have for review, as distinguished from those per curiam opinions which merely cite counsel-advising cases such as in Dodi Publishing. There are two prongs to the problem, and we believe each can be treated by the judges of the district courts without undue problems.

First, we suggest the district courts add an additional sentence in each citation PCA which references a controlling contemporaneous or companion case, stating that the mandate will be withheld pending final disposition of the petition for review, if any, filed in the controlling decision. In essence, this will "pair" the citation PCA with the referenced decision in the district court until it is final without review, or if review is sought, until that review is denied or otherwise acted upon by this Court. If review of the referenced decision is requested, the parties may seek consolidation here. In any event, the district courts' withholding of the mandates will dispose of the need for separate motions to stay mandates in those courts. This simple process, moreover, can be accomplished administratively in the district courts, in the clerks' offices, without significant activity by the judges either before or after the controlling decision is filed with or acted upon by this Court.

A second aspect of the problem calls for a different approach. We recognize that no litigant can guide the district court's selection of the lead case, and that the randomness of the district court's processing would control the party's right of review unless the citation PCA is itself made eligible for review by this Court. To resolve fully this problem, we further suggest that the district courts devise one or more methods to distinguish a contemporaneous or companion case-for example, with distinguishing citation signals or by certifying that an identical point is at issue in the cited case ^*-from cases which offer a mere counsel notification citation. We have no doubt that district court judges can produce one or more methodologies to preserve the review strictures of the 1980 amendment on the one hand, while on the other eliminating the possible injustice inherent in foreclosing review to some...