State v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 14 January 1993
• Docket Number: Nos. 79150,79204,s. 79150
• Citation: 616 So.2d 1
• Parties: 18 Fla. L. Week. S234, 18 Fla. L. Week. S55 STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Cecil B. JOHNSON, Respondent. STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Cecil B. JOHNSON, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 1

616 So.2d 1

18 Fla. L. Week. S234, 18 Fla. L. Week. S55

STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Cecil B. JOHNSON, Respondent.

STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Cecil B. JOHNSON, Appellee.

Nos. 79150, 79204.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Jan. 14, 1993.

Rehearing and Clarification Denied April 8, 1993.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., James W. Rogers, Asst. Atty. Gen., Bureau Chief, and Charlie McCoy, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Legal Affairs, Tallahassee, for petitioner/appellant.

Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and Steven A. Rothenburg and Jamie Spivey, Asst. Public Defenders, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, for respondent/appellee.

OVERTON, Justice.

We have for review Johnson v. State, 589 So.2d 1370 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991), in which the district court held that the amendments to section 775.084, Florida Statutes (1989) (the habitual violent felony offender statute), contained in chapter 89-280, Laws of Florida, violated the single subject rule of article III, section 6, of the Florida Constitution. ¹ The district court acknowledged conflict with Jamison v. State, 583 So.2d 413 (4th DCA), rev. denied, 591 So.2d 182 (Fla.1991), and McCall v. State, 583 So.2d 411 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991), ² and certified the following to be a question of great public importance:

WHETHER THE CHAPTER 89-280 AMENDMENTS TO SECTION 775.084(1)( [b] )(1), FLORIDA STATUTES (1989), WERE UNCONSTITUTIONAL PRIOR TO THEIR REENACTMENT AS PART OF THE FLORIDA STATUTES, BECAUSE IN VIOLATION OF THE SINGLE SUBJECT RULE OF THE FLORIDA CONSTITUTION.

Johnson, 589 So.2d at 1372. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, Sec. 3(b)(1), (3)-(4), Fla. Const. We answer the certified question in the affirmative and, for the reasons expressed, approve the decision of the district court in this case.

Through an information filed on July 23, 1990, Johnson was charged with the sale or delivery of cocaine. The offense occurred on July 5, 1990. Subsequently, the prosecution filed a notice of intent to classify Johnson as a habitual violent felony offender pursuant to section 775.084. The notice was filed on February 1, 1991, and sought to have Johnson's sentence enhanced on the basis of a prior violent felony conviction on July 16, 1987, for "aggravated battery." On February 21, 1991, Johnson was sentenced to a term of twenty-five years as a habitual violent felony offender, with a ten-year minimum mandatory sentence.

On appeal, Johnson contested his sentence on the grounds that the amendments to the habitual offender statute contained in chapter 89-280 violated the single subject rule of article III, section 6, of the Florida Constitution. Chapter 89-280 contained amendments to sections 775.084, 775.0842, and 775.0843, Florida Statutes (1989), governing sentences for habitual felony offenders, and amendments to chapter 493, Florida Statutes (1989), relating to the repossession of personal property and the licensing requirements of persons authorized to repossess such property. Critical to Johnson's sentencing was the amendment to section 775.084(1)(b)(1)k, which added to the habitual violent felony offender category, a defendant who was previously convicted of an "aggravated battery."

Chapter 89-280 was enacted effective October 1, 1989. Chapter 91-44, Laws of Florida, reenacted the 1989 amendments contained in chapter 89-280, effective May 2, 1991, as part of the biennial adoption of the Florida Statutes. The reenactment has the effect of adopting as the official statutory law of the state those portions of statutes that are carried forward from the preceding adopted statutes. Once reenacted as a portion of the Florida Statutes, a chapter law is no longer subject to challenge on the grounds that it violates the single subject requirement of article III, section 6, of the Florida Constitution. See Loxahatchee River Envtl. Control Dist. v. School Bd., 515 So.2d 217 (Fla.1987); State v. Combs, 388 So.2d 1029 (Fla.1980) (the single subject requirement of article III, section 6, only applies to "chapter laws," and sections of the Florida Statutes need not conform to the requirement); see also Linda S. Jessen, Preface to Florida Statutes at vi (1991).

Johnson's offense was committed before the reenactment of chapter 89-280 and during the window period in which that chapter was subject to attack as being violative of the constitution's single subject requirement. The window period in this instance ran from October 1, 1989, the effective date of chapter 89-280, to May 2, 1991, the date on which chapter 89-280 was reenacted. Consequently, Johnson had standing to raise the single subject violation. This single subject challenge was not raised before the trial court. Nevertheless, the district court addressed the issue and agreed that the constitutional single subject requirement had been violated, certifying the aforementioned question to this Court.

The State now challenges the district court's decision on two grounds. The State first asserts that Johnson is prohibited from challenging the constitutionality of chapter 89-280's amendments for the first time on appeal because the issue does not constitute fundamental error. Alternatively, the State contends that the amendments contained in chapter 89-280 do not violate article III, section 6, because the amendments all relate to the single subject of controlling crime and, consequently, are properly connected as required by the Florida Constitution.

The Fundamental Error Question

A facial challenge to a statute's constitutional validity may be raised for the first time on appeal only if the error is fundamental. Trushin v. State, 425 So.2d 1126 (Fla.1982); Steinhorst v. State, 412 So.2d 332 (Fla.1982); Sanford v. Rubin, 237 So.2d 134 (Fla.1970). In Sanford, we reviewed an article III, section 6, constitutional attack on the validity of a chapter law similar to the issue before us here. In that case, we evaluated the question of whether the arguments raised regarding an award of attorney's fees constituted fundamental error so as to allow us to consider a constitutional challenge to the chapter law's title, a challenge that had been raised for the first time on appeal. Because the merits of the case involved an employment retention and compensation question, we determined that the issue of attorney's fees did not go to the merits or the foundation of the case. Consequently, we refused to consider the constitutionality of the chapter law because no fundamental error question was raised. Sanford, 237 So.2d at 138. Subsequently, in reviewing other cases where issues were first being raised on appeal, we concluded that, for an error to be so fundamental that it can be raised for the first time on appeal, the error must be basic to the judicial decision under review and equivalent to a denial of due process. D'Oleo-Valdez v. State, 531 So.2d 1347 (Fla.1988); Ray v. State, 403 So.2d 956 (Fla.1981).

A review of the chapter law at issue reflects that it affects a quantifiable determinant of the length of sentence that may be imposed on a defendant. Section 775.084 allows a court to impose a substantially extended term of imprisonment on those defendants who qualify under the statute. Under the amendments to section 775.084 contained in chapter 89-280, Johnson was sentenced to a maximum sentence of twenty-five years, with a minimum mandatory sentence of ten years. Had he not qualified as a habitual offender under the new amendments, his maximum sentence under the guidelines would have been three and one-half years. Clearly, the habitual felony offender amendments contained in chapter 89-280 involve fundamental "liberty" due process interests. Contrary to the question raised in Sanford, we find the issue in this case to be a question of fundamental error.

We reached a similar conclusion in Trushin by finding that the arguments concerning the constitutional facial validity of the statute under which Trushin was convicted raised a fundamental error. 425 So.2d at 1130. However, we specifically noted in Trushin that "[t]he constitutional application of a statute to a particular set of facts is another matter and must be raised at the trial level." Id. at 1129-30. We conclude that the validity of chapter 89-280 falls within the definition of fundamental error as a matter of law and does not involve any factual application. Consequently, we hold that the challenge may be raised on appeal even though the claim was not raised before the trial court.

The Single Subject Requirement

Having found that the constitutional challenge is properly before this Court, we now address Johnson's contention that the amendments to the habitual felony offender statute contained in chapter 89-280 violate the single subject requirement of article III, section 6. We recently addressed the purpose of this single subject requirement in Martinez v. Scanlan, 582 So.2d 1167, 1172 (Fla.1991):

The purpose of this constitutional prohibition against a plurality of subjects in a single legislative act is to prevent "logrolling" where a single enactment becomes a cloak for dissimilar legislation having no necessary or appropriate connection with the subject matter. State v. Lee, 356 So.2d 276 (Fla.1978). The act may be as broad as the legislature chooses provided the matters included in the act have a natural or logical connection. Chenoweth v. Kemp, 396 So.2d 1122 (Fla.1981).

In applying that purpose to chapter 89-280, we note the district court's description of that law:

The title of the act at issue designates it an act relating to criminal law and procedure. The first three sections of the act amend section 775.084, Florida Statutes, pertaining to habitual felony offenders; section 775.0842, Florida Statutes, pertaining to career criminal prosecutions; and section 775.0843, Florida Statutes, pertaining to policies for career criminal cases. Sections four through eleven of the act pertain to the Chapter 493 provisions governing private investigation and...