Sims v. State, BQ-96
| Decision Date | 24 July 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. BQ-96,BQ-96 |
| Parties | 12 Fla. L. Weekly 1789 Dale L. SIMS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Michael E. Allen, Public Defender, and Carl S. McGinnis, Asst. Public Defender, Tallahassee, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Elizabeth Masters, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.
The issue presented in this appeal is whether section 950.09, Florida Statutes (1985), proscribing malpractice by a jailer, is impermissibly vague and therefore violative of the Florida and federal constitutions. We affirm.
The fair warning requirement embodied in the due process clauses of the federal and Florida constitutions prohibits the state from holding an individual criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed and requires that the law give sufficient warning that men may conform their conduct so as to avoid that which is forbidden. Rose v. Locke, 423 U.S. 48, 96 S.Ct. 243, 46 L.Ed.2d 185 (1975).
In Powell v. State, 508 So.2d 1307 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987), this court recently upheld the constitutional validity of section 950.09 in the face of a contention that the statute is so vague and indefinite that it fails to convey a sufficient warning as to the type of conduct which it prohibits. The appellants in that case pled nolo contendere to charges of violating section 950.09 in an incident involving a juvenile inmate and were tried by a jury on similar charges arising from an incident involving another inmate after they unsuccessfully moved to dismiss the informations in both cases. This court's opinion included the facts determined at trial and commented upon the propriety of applying the law to those facts.
In this case, Dale Sims pled nolo contendere to the charge of malpractice by a jailer under section 950.09, reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion to dismiss which was based on a contention that the statute was unconstitutionally vague. The facts from which the criminal charges arise in a particular case are irrelevant to a determination of the facial constitutional validity of the statute under which the defendant is charged.
The following portions of Powell v. State are dispositive of this appeal: 1
The function of the void-for-vagueness doctrine is to assure that people are given fair notice of what conduct is prohibited by a specific criminal statute and to curb the discretion afforded to law enforcement officers and administrative officials in initiating criminal prosecutions. A statute will be held void for vagueness if the conduct forbidden by it is so unclearly defined that persons "of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application." Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385 [46 S.Ct. 126, 70 L.Ed. 322] (1926). However, "[t]o make a statute sufficiently certain to comply with constitutional requirements, it is not necessary that it furnish detailed plans and specifications of the acts or conduct prohibited." State v. Holden, 299 So.2d 8, 9 (Fla.1974). It is only necessary that the language of the statute convey a sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed conduct when measured by common understanding and practices. State v. Reese, 222 So.2d 732, 736 (Fla.1969).
In deciding whether section 950.09 is unconstitutionally vague, we necessarily focus upon the phrase "willful inhumanity and oppression" to determine whether the words "inhumanity" and "oppression" convey sufficient warning of ascertainable proscribed conduct when measured by common understanding and practices. A cardinal rule of statutory construction requires that, unless otherwise defined or limited by manifest legislative intent, statutory language is to be given its plain and ordinary meaning. Southeastern Fisheries Association, Inc. v. Department of Natural Resources, 453 So.2d 1351 (Fla.1984). Although the critical words are not statutorily defined, they can be...
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