State v. Hamilton
Decision Date | 22 February 2017 |
Docket Number | Case No. 2D16–2754 |
Citation | 210 So.3d 776 |
Parties | STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Timothy Scott HAMILTON, Respondent. |
Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Elba Martin–Schomaker, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, and Jerry Hill, State Attorney, and Victoria J. Avalon, Assistant State Attorney, Bartow, for Petitioner.
Ita M. Neymotin, Regional Counsel, and Joseph Thye Sexton, Assistant Regional Counsel, Bartow, for Respondent.
The State seeks second-tier certiorari review of the circuit court's order granting Defendant Timothy Scott Hamilton's petition for writ of prohibition and ordering the county court to dismiss the charge against Mr. Hamilton for refusing to submit to a breath, blood, or urine test. The circuit court ruled that the county court should have granted Mr. Hamilton's motion to dismiss because, under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.151, the offense underlying the refusal charge was related to the offense underlying a DUI charge of which he had been acquitted one day before the State had filed the information on the refusal charge. We grant the State's petition and quash the circuit court's order because the circuit court ignored well-established case law holding that prohibition is available only to prevent a lower tribunal's unauthorized exercise of jurisdiction.1
A Polk County Sheriff's deputy arrested Mr. Hamilton for driving under the influence. At the Polk County jail, Mr. Hamilton twice refused to provide a breath sample, the second time occurring after the deputy had read him the statutory implied-consent warning. The State charged Mr. Hamilton with DUI (two prior convictions), see § 316.193(1)(a), (2)(b)(2), Fla. Stat. (2011), but a county court jury found Mr. Hamilton not guilty. The following day, the State charged Mr. Hamilton with refusing to submit to a breath test. See § 316.1939(1). Mr. Hamilton moved to dismiss the refusal charge pursuant to rule 3.151(c), arguing that the offenses underlying the refusal charge and the DUI charge were related2 and that the State's prosecution of the DUI demonstrated that it would have been able, by due diligence, to obtain sufficient evidence to warrant charging the refusal. The county court denied the motion.
Mr. Hamilton petitioned for a writ of prohibition and requested the circuit court to bar prosecution on the refusal charge either pursuant to rule 3.151, or, alternatively, because it would constitute double jeopardy. The circuit court rejected Mr. Hamilton's double-jeopardy argument but granted the petition based on its conclusion that the DUI and the refusal were related offenses under rule 3.151(a). The circuit court, however, did not address the threshold question of whether prohibition was available to preclude prosecution under rule 3.151(c).
A second-tier petition for writ of certiorari is the appropriate vehicle to review a circuit court's order on a petition for writ of prohibition. See Sutton v. State , 975 So.2d 1073, 1080–81 (Fla. 2008). This court's review is limited to whether the circuit court afforded the petitioner procedural due process and whether it departed from the essential requirements of law. See Custer Med. Ctr. v. United Auto. Ins. Co. , 62 So.3d 1086, 1092 (Fla. 2010). Such a departure must be more than simple legal error, because second-tier certiorari relief is available only "when the lower tribunal has violated a clearly established principle of law resulting in a miscarriage of justice." Id. This "clearly established law" can include constitutional law, statutes, rules of court, and recent controlling case law that deals "with the same issue of law, an interpretation or application of a statute, a procedural rule, or a constitutional provision." Allstate Ins. Co. v. Kaklamanos , 843 So.2d 885, 890 (Fla. 2003).
The writ of prohibition is an extraordinary remedy that "may only be granted when it is shown that a lower court is without jurisdiction or attempting to act in excess of jurisdiction." English v. McCrary , 348 So.2d 293, 296 (Fla. 1977) ; see also Taylor v. State , 65 So.3d 531, 533 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011) (). The writ is available, for example, to prevent prosecutions that the trial court lacks jurisdiction to entertain based on double jeopardy or speedy trial considerations. See, e.g. , Sherrod v. Franza , 427 So.2d 161, 163 (Fla. 1983) ( ; Moody v. State , 931 So.2d 177 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006) ( ); State ex rel. Wilhoit v. Wells , 356 So.2d 817, 821–22, 825 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978) ( ).
In this case, however, after rejecting the merits of Mr. Hamilton's double-jeopardy argument, the circuit court addressed the merits of his rule 3.151 argument without first considering whether rule 3.151 implicates the county court's jurisdiction to entertain his prosecution on the refusal charge. And, in short, it does not. See Von Deck v. Evander , 622 So.2d 1160, 1162 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993) ; see also State v. Mateen , 678 So.2d 449, 451 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996) (...
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State v. Jones
...statute and that the result was a manifest injustice in derogation of that express statutory language).8 See, e.g., State v. Hamilton, 210 So. 3d 776, 779 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017) (holding that the violation of a clearly established principle of law was a miscarriage of justice on the bases (1) t......