State v. Giorgetti

• Decision Date: 04 March 2004
• Docket Number: No. SC02-1812.,SC02-1812.
• Citation: 868 So.2d 512
• Parties: STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Victor GIORGETTI, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

868 So.2d 512

STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Victor GIORGETTI, Respondent.

No. SC02-1812.

Supreme Court of Florida.

March 4, 2004.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Michael J. Neimand and Douglas J. Glaid, Senior Assistant Attorneys General, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Petitioner.

Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Dea Abramschmitt, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, FL, for Respondent.

ANSTEAD, C.J.

We have for review a decision from the Fourth District Court of Appeal on a question which the court certified to be of great public importance. Giorgetti v. State, 821 So.2d 417 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. For the reasons stated in this opinion, we rephrase the question:

Does the crime created by the sexual offender registration statutes require the State to prove knowledge of the registration requirement by the offender as an element of the crime?

We answer the rephrased question in the affirmative and approve the Fourth District's decision, which holds that before an offender may be held criminally liable for failing to register, the State must prove that he was aware of a registration requirement.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE AND FACTS

In November of 1992, respondent, Victor Giorgetti, was convicted of indecent assault and sentenced to two years imprisonment, followed by seven years' probation. Giorgetti v. State, 821 So.2d 417, 418 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002). In March of 1997, Giorgetti's probation status was changed to administrative probation, meaning that while the probationary term technically continued, Giorgetti was no longer required to contact his probation officer. Id. Thereafter, on April 30, 1999, Giorgetti's probation status was ended. Id. Following the termination of probation, Giorgetti moved to a new address. Id. at 418-19.

Sometime after his probation was terminated, a police officer came into contact with Giorgetti at his new address while the officer was looking for another person on an unrelated matter. Id. at 419. The officer asked Giorgetti for identification and when the officer checked Giorgetti's name using a mobile computer system, it identified Giorgetti as a sexual offender. The officer also noted that the address shown on Giorgetti's identification was different from the address where Giorgetti was then residing. Id. As a result of this contact, Giorgetti was arrested and charged with failing to report his change of address as required in sections 943.0435 and 944.607(9), Florida Statutes (2000) (hereinafter "the sexual offender registration statutes"). Id.¹ Violations of these registration statutes are punishable as third-degree felonies.²

Giorgetti pleaded not guilty to the charges, claiming he was not aware of the registration requirements, and he subsequently challenged the constitutionality of the sexual offender registration statutes based on the absence of a knowledge requirement. 821 So.2d at 419. The trial court denied Giorgetti's pretrial constitutional challenge, and at trial the State asked for, and the trial court gave, a jury instruction explaining that the State was not required to prove that this statute had an element of knowledge or that Giorgetti intended to violate the statute. Id.³ Giorgetti was convicted of violating the sexual offender registration statutes.

Giorgetti appealed his convictions to the Fourth District Court of Appeal, challenging the trial court's ruling that no proof of Giorgetti's knowledge of the registration provisions of the statutes had been required. Id. Upon a review of United States Supreme Court decisions, and this Court's decision in Chicone v. State, 684 So.2d 736 (Fla.1996), the district court reversed Giorgetti's conviction and remanded for a new trial. The court concluded that because "the violation of the sexual offender registration statutes is a felony, absent express contrary intent by the legislature, we must presume that mens rea is an element of the crime." Giorgetti, 821 So.2d at 422. The court explained:

[W]e conclude that the trial court erred in giving the special instruction absolving the state of the burden to prove guilty knowledge or scienter or mens rea in this prosecution for a criminal violation of the sexual offender registration statutes. These statutes create no mere informational reporting requirement, the violation of which is punished with a small fine. In this case the penalty for the offense turned out to be more than six and one-half years imprisonment. In spite of the failure of the legislature to include an explicit element of intent in the statutory text, the authorities cited above require the courts to read a "broadly applicable" intent requirement into the state's burden of proof. We do so now, thus requiring a new trial.

Id. The Fourth District certified the same issue it resolved as one of great public importance.

LAW AND ANALYSIS

Preference in Favor of Knowledge

Judge Farmer's opinion for the district court (reviewing the controlling decisions of this Court and the of United States Supreme Court), provides an excellent analysis and record of the historical preference in favor of a requirement of knowledge. We acknowledge and repeat his efforts here to explain our similar conclusion.

Initially, we would note that the Legislature generally has broad authority to determine any requirement for intent or knowledge in the definition of a crime. See Reynolds v. State, 842 So.2d 46, 49 (Fla.2002). To determine whether the Legislature included a knowledge requirement in any given statute, we first look to the statute's plain language. Id. In the instant case, however, the sexual offender registration statutes provide no explicit guidance as to whether the Legislature intended there to be a knowledge requirement for proving a violation of the statute. See § 943.0435, Fla. Stat. (2000); § 944.607(9), Fla. Stat. (2000). The statutory provisions dealing with the sexual offender registration requirements simply contain no express direction.

At common law, all crimes consisted of both an act or omission coupled with a requisite guilty knowledge or mens rea. See United States v. Balint, 258 U.S. 250, 251, 42 S.Ct. 301, 66 L.Ed. 604 (1922). Hence, as a general rule, guilty knowledge or mens rea was a necessary element in the proof of every crime. Id.; see also United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. 422, 436, 98 S.Ct. 2864, 57 L.Ed.2d 854 (1978) ("The existence of a mens rea is the rule of, rather than the exception to, the principles of Anglo-American criminal jurisprudence."). Subsequently, as chronicled in numerous U.S. Supreme Court decisions, this rule was followed with regard to statutorily defined crimes, even if the statute did not expressly include a knowledge requirement. See Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600, 605, 114 S.Ct. 1793, 128 L.Ed.2d 608 (1994) ("[S]ilence ... does not necessarily suggest that Congress intended to dispense with a conventional mens rea element, which would require that the defendant know the facts that make his conduct illegal."). In fact, the United States Supreme Court "has on a number of occasions read a state-of-mind component into an offense even when the statutory definition did not in terms so provide." United States Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. at 437, 98 S.Ct. 2864. Moreover, because of the strength of the traditional rule that requires mens rea, offenses that require no mens rea are generally disfavored. Staples, 511 U.S. at 606, 114 S.Ct. 1793.

Thus, the Supreme Court has concluded that "some indication of congressional intent, express or implied, is required to dispense with mens rea as an element of a crime." Id. In other words, the Court has virtually created a presumption in favor of a guilty knowledge element absent an express provision to the contrary.

As noted by Judge Farmer, we relied on these Supreme Court decisions in Chicone v. State, 684 So.2d 736 (Fla.1996), wherein we examined sections 893.13(1)(f), Florida Statutes (1991) (possession of controlled substance) and 893.147(1), Florida Statutes (1995) (possession of drug paraphernalia). See Chicone, 684 So.2d at 737-38. Like the sexual offender registration statutes in the instant case, both possession statutes involved in Chicone were silent as to whether a knowledge element was required. Id. After setting out the Supreme Court decisions discussed above, we explained:

The United States Supreme Court has stated that offenses that require no mens rea generally are disfavored, and has suggested that some indication of legislative intent, express or implied, is required to dispense with mens rea as an element of a crime. There is no such indication of legislative intent to dispense with mens rea here. Our holding depends substantially on our view that if the legislature had intended to make criminals out of people who were wholly ignorant of the offending characteristics of items in their possession, and subject them to lengthy prison terms, it would have spoken more clearly to that effect. Interpreting the statutes as dispensing with scienter would "criminalize a broad range of apparently innocent conduct."...

... We believe it was the intent of the legislature to prohibit the knowing possession of illicit items and to prevent persons from doing so by attaching a substantial criminal penalty to such conduct.... As all agree, including the State, the legislature would not ordinarily criminalize the innocent possession of illegal drugs.

Id. at 743-44 (citations and footnotes omitted). Thus, like the United States Supreme Court, we held in Chicone that we will ordinarily presume that the Legislature intends statutes defining a criminal violation to contain a knowledge requirement absent an express indication of a contrary intent. An express provision dispensing with guilty knowledge will always control, of course, since in that instance the Legislature will have made its intent clear.

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