Silver v. State
| Decision Date | 20 April 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 34313,34313 |
| Citation | 188 So.2d 300 |
| Parties | Sam SILVER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Julius F. Parker, Seymour H. Rowland, Jr., Parker, Foster & Madigan, Tallahassee, and Albert Datz, Jacksonville, for appellant.
Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., and George R. Georgieff, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Sam Silver, the appellant, and one Harold Hilsenrad, were charged with grand larceny in an imformation filed in the Criminal Court of Record of Duval County. The trial culminated in a verdict of guilty. Eventually an appeal to the District Court of Appeal, First District, 174 So.2d 91, was taken by Silver. What became of Hilsenrad we do not learn from the record so we are only concerned with the fortune of Silver.
In the appellate court there was considered and decided the constitutionality of Section 811.021 which the appellant first challenged via a vague assignment of error in that court. It was held that the statute clearly defined as one of the forms of larceny the act of securing the signature of a person to a written instrument, the false making of which would be punishable as forgery, with intent to defraud the owner of his property or to appropriate the same to the use of the taker. The author of the opinion concluded, and his colleagues agreed, that the former crime of obtaining money under false pretenses had been absorbed in the offenses denounced by Section 811.021.
The manner in which the Constitutional question was presented was criticized by the District Court of Appeal when it was observed that the appellant had failed to identify the particular assignments of error with the respective points of law involved as required by Florida Appellate Rule 3.7(f)(4), 31 F.S.A. Nevertheless the court decided to be indulgent but warned that although no penalty would be imposed in this instance 'this forbearance is not to be taken as precedent for future violations.'
The procedure followed is even worse and will not be condoned by this court. There was no effort to present to the trial court an assault on the constitutionality of the section on which the information was grounded. In fact, the appellant states in his brief that he 'did not specifically raise the constitutionality of the statute involved in the trial court,' then adds 'although his motion to quash information on the ground that the information did not state a crime would Probably encompass a constitutional complaint.' (Italics supplied.)
This circuitous method of bringing to the Supreme Court a constitutional inquiry cannot be approved. It is an attempt to circumvent the trial court despite the former rulings that an appellate court will disregard questions not presented to trial courts. Ross v. Florida Sun Life Insurance Co., Fla.App., 124 So.2d 892; Northeast Polk County Hospital District et al. v. Snively, Fla., 162 So.2d 657. In the opinion in Mariani v. Schleman, Fla., 94 So.2d 829, this court said that it was 'a rule of long standing that on appeal this Court (would) confine itself to a review of those questions, and only those questions, which were before the trial court.' Furthermore, the court said 'Matters not presented to the trial court by the pleadings and evidence will not be considered by this court on appeal.'
The quoted language seems extremely apposite to the case at bar. But before we pursue the matter we take a look at the constitutional provision with reference to appeals here from initial constitutional problems in the District Courts of Appeal and to the need for it. The provision as it appears in Section 4(2) of Article V of the Constitution, F.S.A., or so much of it as applies to the present problem, will bear quoting. 'Appeals from district courts of appeal may be taken to the supreme court, as a matter of right, only from decisions initially passing upon the validity of a state statute * * *.' The primary purpose of the provision arose from the provision of Section 5(3) of Article V vesting in District Courts of...
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