State v. Davis
| Decision Date | 11 October 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 35974,35974 |
| Citation | 203 So.2d 160 |
| Parties | STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Robert Lee DAVIS, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Earl Faircloth Atty. Gen., and Arden M. Siegendorf, Asst. Atty. Gen., for petitioner.
Robert L. Koeppel, Public Defender, and Alan R. Schwartz, Special Asst. Public Defender, for respondent.
By a petition for a writ of certiorari, buttressed by a certificate 'of great public interest,' we are requested to review a decision of a District Court of Appeal.
The respondent, Robert Lee Davis, was tried without a jury in Dade County, and adjudged guilty of possessing a pistol after having been previously convicted of a felony, contrary to Fla.Stat. 790.23, F.S.A. The Third District Court of Appeal reversed the judgment of the trial court. Davis v. State, 191 So.2d 440 (3d D.C.A.Fla. 1966). Jurisdiction here is grounded on the certificate of the District Court, certifying a question 'of great public interest' as follows: 'Whether a defendant in a recidivist proceeding may defend by challenging the validity of a prior conviction which is alleged as an element of the offense charged?' See Fla.Const. Art. V, § 4, F.S.A.
The state's case against Davis rested upon evidence of his possession of a pistol and a record of his conviction for robbery in 1946 in Hillsborough County. During the course of the proceeding in Dade County, Davis indicated that he desired to attack the validity of his prior conviction in Hillsborough County. The trial court stayed the proceeding in Dade County to give Davis an opportunity to do so. Davis' efforts in Hillsborough County were unsuccessful, apparently because he was not still in custody under the particular judgment that he assaulted there. Although it appeared in the record of the subsequent proceeding in Dade County that Davis' 1946 conviction had been obtained without counsel or competent waiver of counsel, the Dade court refused to sustain these objections to the validity of that conviction. The trial judge felt that Davis could not collaterally attack the Hillsborough judgment in the Dade County proceeding.
Davis is not technically a recidivist as we understand the meaning of that word. A recidivist is one charged with the commission of a crime, who has previously been convicted of another crime. He is a repeater. Ballentine, Law Dictionary, 1094 (2d ed. 1948). The fact that the alleged recidivist has committed a previous felony is not determinative of his guilt or innocence of the later offense. The state must prove the elements of the subsequent crime without regard to the first offense. The fact that there was a former offense becomes relevant only in determining the degree of punishment that the recidivist must suffer. Sec. 775.09--775.11 Fla.Stat., F.S.A. (1965); State ex rel. Lockmiller v. Mayo, 88 Fla. 96, 101 So. 228 (1924); Dade County v. Molony, 175 So.2d 238 (3d D.C.A.Fla. 1965).
Davis was charged with possession of a pistol after he had been convicted of a felony. This crime cannot be committed unless the individual charged is an ex-felon. His prior conviction is a substantive element of the crime charged. Its relevancy is not restricted solely to a determination of the extent of sentence to be served as it would be in a true recidivist proceeding. Davis was simply charged with committing a crime, albeit an essential element was proof of commission of a prior felony.
The District Court treated the prior conviction just as any other factual element of a crime. It felt that since the defendant had introduced evidence that he lacked counsel at his prior conviction, the state had the burden to rebut that evidence, or fail in its case.
In a true recidivist situation we have held that the state must establish that the accused was previously adjudged guilty of a felony by a court of competent jurisdiction. Shargaa v. State, 102 So.2d 809 (Fla.1958). Ordinarily, also, the record of the court of prior conviction is sufficient, without more, to make a prima facie case on the point. The prior judgment duly entered precludes any subsequent assault on its merits. However, in a case such as the one at bar where the existence of a valid, as distinguished from a correct, prior judgment is an essential factual element of the crime charged, then the organic validity of the prior judgment may be brought into question in the trial on the subsequent charge. Evidence of the details of the prior...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
U.S. v. Matassini
...of the required underlying conviction and the reach of the exemption provision have also been examined by the courts. In State v. Davis, 203 So.2d 160 (Fla.1967), the Florida Supreme Court stated that the felon-in-possession cannot be committed unless the individual charged is an ex-felon. ......
-
Vazquez v. State
...to him that a reversal here would not have been in order. See Dedmon v. State, 400 So.2d 1042 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981).2 State v. Davis, 203 So.2d 160, 162 (Fla.1967) ("Davis was charged with possession of a pistol after he had been convicted of a felony. This crime cannot be committed unless th......
-
Burkett v. State
...language to the effect that it is a "final judgment of conviction" from which a defendant has the right to appeal.8 State v. Davis, 203 So.2d 160 (Fla.1967).9 See DePugh v. United States, 393 F.2d 367 (8th Cir.), cert. den., 393 U.S. 832, 89 S.Ct. 101, 21 L.Ed.2d 102 (1968).10 See Lewis v. ......
-
Murray v. Wainwright, 29715.
...might be unable to assert that the 1959 conviction was, due to a six year delay in prosecution, constitutionally infirm. In State v. Davis, 203 So.2d 160 (Fla., 1967), a case considering the availability of a collateral attack on a record of a prior conviction, the Supreme Court of Florida ......