State v. Preston, 56496
| Decision Date | 04 October 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 56496,56496 |
| Citation | 376 So.2d 3 |
| Parties | STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Robert A. PRESTON, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Alan B. Robinson, Asst. State's Atty., Sanford, for appellant.
Joan H. Bickerstaff, Asst. Public Defender, Cocoa Beach, Bennett Ford, Chief Asst. Public Defender, Titusville and Andrew A. Graham, Cocoa, for appellee.
The present interlocutory appeal is before the Court on transfer from the fourth district court of appeal. Before that court Preston successfully argued that jurisdiction properly lies in this Court under article V, sections 3(b)(3) and (1) of the Florida Constitution, since he is charged with a first-degree murder for which, on final judgment, the death penalty might be imposed. Treating the appeal as a petition for certiorari under section 3(b)(3), we transfer this cause back to the district court pursuant to article V, section 2(a) and Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.040(b).
Article V, section 3(b)(3), Florida Constitution, authorizes the Court to review, in its discretion, "any interlocutory order passing upon a matter which upon final judgment would be directly appealable to the supreme court." The matter here for review is a pretrial order of the circuit court suppressing certain evidence obtained during a search of Preston's room. 1
Preston argues that the Court's jurisdiction over this appeal is supported by our exercise of jurisdiction in Reino v. State, 352 So.2d 853 (Fla.1977), and Bundy v. Rudd, 366 So.2d 440 (Fla.1978), both of which involved judicial decisions in the course of a capital case other than a final decision imposing a sentence of death.
Reino brought to the Court a trial court's order which held that the statute of limitations on capital crimes did not bar Reino's prosecution, and Bundy brought to the Court an order of the trial judge denying his disqualification to preside in a capital case. Unlike the present appeal, both of those cases came to the Court on petitions for writ of prohibition under article V, section 3(b)(4) of the Constitution, which authorizes the Court to "issue writs of prohibition . . . in causes within the jurisdiction of the supreme court to review." Capital cases, of course, where the death penalty may be imposed, arguably will be "causes" within this Court's jurisdiction to review. Nonetheless, our jurisdiction to consider the interlocutory matters in those cases was, as Justice Sundberg noted for the Court in Reino, "novel and not without doubt." 2
Interlocutory appeals under section 3(b)(3) are confined to orders "passing on a matter" which on final judgment would be appealable here. Routine interlocutory orders in the course of a capital case, such as the suppression order in this case, could be, of course, appealable here if a conviction is had and a sentence of death imposed. Under...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Preston v. Sec'y, Department of Corr., CASE NO. 6:08-cv-2085-Orl-31GJK
...the Florida Supreme Court. The Florida Supreme Court, in turn, transferred the case back to the state appellate court. See State v. Preston, 376 So. 2d 3 (Fla. 1979). The state appellate court then entered an opinion reversing the trial court's order because Ms. Preston did have equal acces......
-
Preston v. State
...case to this Court. We declined jurisdiction and remanded the cause to the Fifth District Court of Appeal for a decision. State v. Preston, 376 So.2d 3 (Fla.1979). In State v. Preston, 387 So.2d 495 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980), the district court reversed the trial court's order suppressing the evi......
-
State v. Jackson
...article V, section 3(b)(1) to decide an issue—one that is "unique to capital cases or to the death sentence itself," State v. Preston , 376 So. 2d 3, 4 (Fla. 1979) —that is already before this Court on direct appeal and that has resulted in at least one vacated death sentence being reinstat......
-
Harvard v. Singletary
...analogous proceedings in the past for similar reasons.3 We have done so even in ongoing capital cases. For example, in State v. Preston, 376 So.2d 3, 4-5 (Fla.1979), a capital case where the death penalty had not yet been imposed, we declined jurisdiction and transferred an interlocutory ap......