State v. Garcia
Decision Date | 27 October 2022 |
Docket Number | SC20-1419 |
Citation | 350 So.3d 322 |
Parties | STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Johnathan David GARCIA, Respondent. |
Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Henry C. Whitaker, Solicitor General, Jeffrey Paul DeSousa, Chief Deputy Solicitor General, and Christopher J. Baum, Senior Deputy Solicitor General, Tallahassee, Florida, for Petitioner
Robert Wesley, Public Defender, Robert Thompson Adams IV, Catherine Conlon, and Marie Taylor, Assistant Public Defenders, Ninth Judicial Circuit, Orlando, Florida, for Respondent
Harvey J. Sepler of Alvarez Gonzalez Menezes LLP, Hollywood, Florida, for Amici Curiae Independence Institute and Due Process Institute
Jackie Perczek and Jeanelle Gomez of Black Srebnick, Miami, Florida, and Diana L. Johnson, Jacksonville, Florida, for Amici Curiae Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Professor Laurent Sacharoff
Daniel B. Tilley of American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Inc., Miami, Florida, and Jo Ann Palchak of The Law Office of Jo Ann Palchak, P.A., Tampa, Florida, for Amici Curiae American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
We took this case to answer questions posed by the Fifth District Court of Appeal1 about whether requiring a defendant to disclose the passcode to an encrypted smartphone violates his constitutional right not to "be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." U.S. Const. amend. V.
After considering the parties’ briefs and oral arguments, we conclude that we must answer a different question first: whether the court properly granted certiorari below, in Garcia v. State , 302 So. 3d 1051 (Fla. 5th DCA 2020). See Polk Cnty. v. Sofka , 702 So. 2d 1243, 1245 (Fla. 1997) ( ).
We find that it did not. The order before the Fifth District did not cause Garcia irreparable harm—that is, a material injury that could not be corrected on postjudgment appeal. The district court therefore did not have certiorari jurisdiction.
Furthermore, even if jurisdiction had been established, it could not be shown that the circuit court violated a clearly established principle of law. So we quash the Fifth District's decision to grant the writ and remand for further proceedings consistent with our decision.
On March 8, 2018, someone shattered Terrell Collins's bedroom window. Police investigating the crime scene found a Samsung smartphone nearby. Collins's girlfriend, Ana Diaz, speculated that the culprit was her ex-boyfriend, Johnathan Garcia, who she believed was following her. At the police's request, Diaz called the phone number she had saved in her phone as Garcia's, and the smartphone began to ring. It displayed Diaz's name and phone number.
About a month later, on April 17, Diaz called police back to Collins's home to show them a GPS tracker she had discovered on her car. The police researched the tracker and learned it could be traced by a smartphone application. The police submitted the tracker into evidence under the case number used for Collins's shattered window.
The State charged Garcia with aggravated stalking with a credible threat, in violation of section 784.048(3), Florida Statutes (2018), and with throwing a deadly missile into a building, in violation of section 790.19, Florida Statutes. On January 4, 2019,2 the State obtained a search warrant to search the smartphone for evidence related to Garcia's charges. The smartphone, however, was passcode protected.3
The State filed a motion to compel Garcia to disclose the smartphone's passcode. Declining to concede ownership of the smartphone, Garcia argued that such compelled disclosure would violate his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The trial court granted the State's motion.
Garcia then filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the Fifth District, contesting the trial court's order to compel. The Fifth District granted the writ and quashed the trial court's order to compel, without discussing whether Garcia had demonstrated that the order would cause him irreparable harm.
The State sought discretionary review in this Court.
Although it did not do so below, the State raises subject-matter jurisdiction here, contending that the Fifth District should have denied the writ under our cases governing its narrow scope and intended use. See Cunningham v. Standard Guar. Ins. , 630 So. 2d 179, 181 (Fla. 1994) .
A writ of certiorari to correct a nonfinal order is indeed "an extraordinary remedy." Martin-Johnson, Inc. v. Savage , 509 So. 2d 1097, 1098 (Fla. 1987). In the normal course of proceedings, Florida law authorizes interlocutory appeals from only a few types of nonfinal orders. Id. at 1098 n.2 (citing Fla. R. App. P. 9.130 ).4 Otherwise, appellate review is generally "postponed until the matter is concluded in the trial court" and addressed in a final order. Id. at 1098 ; see also Fla. R. App. P. 9.130 (Committee Notes, 1977 Amendments) () .
For a district court to grant a writ of certiorari, the petitioner must "demonstrate that the contested order constitutes ‘(1) a departure from the essential requirements of the law, (2) resulting in material injury for the remainder of the case[,] (3) that cannot be corrected on postjudgment appeal.’ " Bd. of Trs. of Internal Improvement Tr. Fund v. Am. Educ. Enters. , 99 So. 3d 450, 454 (Fla. 2012) (quoting Reeves v. Fleetwood Homes of Fla., Inc. , 889 So. 2d 812, 822 (Fla. 2004) ). Courts consider in tandem whether the contested order would cause the petitioner material injury and whether the petitioner has an adequate remedy on appeal, referring to the combined question as whether the petitioner would suffer "irreparable harm." See Citizens Prop. Ins. Corp. v. San Perdido Ass'n , 104 So. 3d 344, 351 (Fla. 2012) ( ). And we address the irreparable harm question prior to determining whether the contested order departed from the essential requirements of the law. See Williams v. Oken , 62 So. 3d 1129, 1132-33 (Fla. 2011) ().
Here, the trial court's order compelling Garcia to produce the smartphone's passcode may very well materially injure his defense at trial. If Garcia knows and discloses the smartphone's passcode, leaving aside the smartphone's contents, he would be providing evidence to support the conclusion that he owns the smartphone. And that evidence would be corroborated by the fact that the smartphone rings when his ex-girlfriend calls his number. Further, by giving evidence to support his ownership of a smartphone found at the crime scene, Garcia's disclosure of the passcode would also tend to prove that he was there at some point—likely at the time of the crime, given that the phone was still charged enough to function when it was discovered.
We find, however, that Garcia could adequately remedy these potential, admittedly material, injuries on postjudgment appeal of a final order. See State v. Pettis , 520 So. 2d 250, 253 n.2 (Fla. 1988). On the record before us now, we cannot know what use of the smartphone evidence the State will ultimately propose to make, whether such evidence will be admitted by the trial court, or how any such use would be rebutted by Garcia. These considerations would shape the questions of law a court would consider on appellate review. It is for precisely this reason that "[g]enerally, parties must wait until after a final order is issued before seeking appellate review." Rodriguez v. Miami-Dade Cnty. , 117 So. 3d 400, 404 (Fla. 2013) ; see also Jaye v. Royal Saxon, Inc. , 720 So. 2d 214, 215 (Fla. 1998) (); Martin-Johnson, Inc. , 509 So. 2d at 1098 (). In the absence of irreparable harm incapable of remedy on postjudgment appeal, the district court had no jurisdiction to issue a writ of certiorari.
While that conclusion decides this case, we cannot say the trial order constitutes a departure from the essential requirements of the law—another requirement for a grant of certiorari. See Combs v. State , 436 So. 2d 93, 96 (Fla. 1983) ( ).
To the contrary, as the parties demonstrate in their briefing, this case may, if and when properly before us, pose questions we have not previously answered regarding the scope of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, or for which there was no clearly established law binding on the trial court....
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