State v. Muller

Citation693 So.2d 976
Decision Date15 May 1997
Docket NumberNo. 88221,88221
Parties22 Fla. L. Weekly S264 STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Raymond G. MULLER, Appellee.
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Florida

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General and Patricia E. Davenport, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, and Bernie McCabe, State Attorney and C. Marie King, Assistant State Attorney, Clearwater, for Appellant.

Robert E. Jagger, Public Defender and Anne M. Sylvester, Sixth Judicial Circuit, New Port Richey, for Appellee.

GRIMES, Justice.

The State appeals the decision in State v. Muller, 681 So.2d 725 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996), declaring section 316.193(6)(d), Florida Statutes (1993), to be unconstitutionally vague. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.

Section 316.193(6)(d), which is a subdivision of the driving under the influence (DUI) statute, reads in pertinent part:

(d) In addition to the penalty imposed under paragraph (a), paragraph (b), or paragraph (c), the court shall also order the impoundment or immobilization of the vehicle that was driven by, or in the actual physical control of, the person who is convicted, unless the court finds that the family of the owner of the vehicle has no other public or private means of transportation.

The length of the impoundment or immobilization depends upon the extent of previous DUI convictions.

Raymond Muller was arrested for DUI. Muller pled no contest and was placed on probation after being adjudicated guilty. The trial court declined to impose the additional penalty of vehicle impoundment, finding that the impoundment provision was unconstitutional.

The State appealed the trial court's determination of the statute's unconstitutionality. The district court of appeal affirmed, reasoning that section 316.193(6)(d) was unconstitutionally vague because it provides no mechanism for enforcement and fails to define "immobilization."

A statute is generally considered vague if it does not give people of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what constitutes forbidden conduct. Warren v. State, 572 So.2d 1376 (Fla.1991). In analyzing section 316.193(6)(d), the district court of appeal attempted to fit its holding into the traditional vagueness analysis by citing to Bouters v. State, 659 So.2d 235 (Fla.1995). However, the issue in Bouters was whether the statutory definition of "harasses" in the stalking statute provided defendants with adequate notice of what conduct was proscribed. In contrast to the statute challenged in Bouters, section 316.193(6)(d) does not delineate prohibited conduct.

Section 316.193(6)(d) merely sets forth an additional penalty of vehicle impoundment. The subsection itself provides notice that upon a conviction of DUI, the driver's vehicle will be impounded. See State v. Ginn, 660 So.2d 1118 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995) (drivers are given notice of impoundment in the same way that they have notice that they can be fined and jailed if convicted of DUI), review denied, 669 So.2d 251 (Fla.1996). The concern of the district court of appeal with respect to who will be effecting the impoundment is of no import to the DUI defendant facing the impoundment and does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation. 1 In addition, we cannot agree that the absence of a definition of "immobilization" renders the statute unconstitutionally vague. The fact that his or her vehicle is rendered immobile with a locking device as an alternative to impoundment should come as no surprise to one convicted of DUI.

Muller does not seriously argue that the statute is unconstitutional for the reasons discussed by the district court of appeal. Rather, Muller's main contention is that the impoundment law violates the due-process rights of nondefendant owners. However, as...

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5 cases
  • Sieniarecki v. State
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of Florida
    • April 27, 2000
    ...that "[o]ne to whose conduct a statute clearly applies may not successfully challenge it for vagueness"); see also State v. Muller, 693 So.2d 976 (Fla.1997) (holding that section 316.193(6)(d), Florida Statutes (1993), which requires impoundment or immobilization of a vehicle driven by a pe......
  • L.B. v. State
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court of Florida
    • October 2, 1997
    ...vague if it "does not give people of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what constitutes forbidden conduct." See State v. Muller, 693 So.2d 976, 977 (Fla.1997). While we agree that section 790.001(13) is not "a paradigm of legislative drafting," State v. Manfredonia, 649 So.2d 1388, 1390 ......
  • State v. Darynani, 4D99-4172.
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Florida (US)
    • December 27, 2000
    ...vague if it does not give people of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what constitutes forbidden conduct. See State v. Muller, 693 So.2d 976 (Fla.1997). Where a statute does not specifically define words of common usage, a dictionary may be consulted to ascertain the plain and ordinary m......
  • Epstein v. Bank of Am., Nat'l Ass'n
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Florida (US)
    • January 28, 2015
    ...U.S. 601, 610, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973). This also holds true specifically for due process challenges. See State v. Muller, 693 So.2d 976, 978 (Fla.1997) (holding that a defendant lacked standing to challenge a violation of the due process rights of the non-defendant owners of a......
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