Ward v. State

• Decision Date: 17 January 2008
• Docket Number: No. SC06-1764.,SC06-1764.
• Citation: 986 So.2d 479
• Parties: Michael WARD, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

986 So.2d 479

Michael WARD, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.

No. SC06-1764.

Supreme Court of Florida.

January 17, 2008.

As Revised on Denial of Rehearing July 3, 2008.

Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Roy A. Heimlich, Assistant Public Defender, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, Miami, FL, for Petitioner.

Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Celia Terenzio, Bureau Chief, and Sue-Ellen Kenny, Assistant Attorneys General, West Palm Beach, FL, for Respondent.

QUINCE, J.

This case is before the Court for review of the decision of the Third District Court of Appeal in Ward v. State, 936 So.2d 1143, 1144 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006). In its decision the district court ruled upon the following question, which the court certified to be of great public importance:

WHETHER A PERSON WHO WAS NOT IN CUSTODY ON JANUARY 1, 1999, IS ELIGIBLE FOR CIVIL COMMITMENT UNDER THE JIMMY RYCE ACT IF THAT PERSON WAS SENTENCED TO TOTAL CONFINEMENT AFTER JANUARY 1, 1999, BUT THE QUALIFYING CONVICTION OCCURRED BEFORE JANUARY 1, 1999.

Id. at 1150. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. For the reasons explained below, we answer the question in the affirmative and approve the decision below.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Michael Ward pled guilty to two separate acts of rape in 1969 and two more in 1976. Ward, 936 So.2d at 1144. In 1983, the Third District reversed the 1969 convictions because counsel had misadvised Ward about the consequences of his guilty plea. See Ward v. State, 433 So.2d 1221, 1223 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983). Ward was released from prison on the 1976 offenses in 1993. Ward, 936 So.2d at 1144. In January 2004, Ward was sentenced to thirty-six months in state prison for burglary of an occupied conveyance and possession of burglary tools. Id. No sexual offense was involved in the burglary charge.

In January 2005, the State filed a petition in circuit court seeking Ward's involuntary commitment as a sexually violent predator under the Jimmy Ryce Act (the Act). In re Ward, No. 05-1287 CA32 (Fla. 11th Cir. Jan. 19, 2005).¹ Ward moved to dismiss the petition on the ground that the Act did not authorize either the institution of the commitment proceeding or the commitment sought because he had not been in custody on January 1, 1999, and had not been convicted of any sexually violent offense since the effective date of the Act. In re Ward, No. 05-1287 CA32 (Fla. 11th Cir. Mar. 1, 2005). The trial court ruled that a person incarcerated after the effective date of the Act for an offense not defined as a sexually violent offense, but who had been convicted previously of a sexually violent offense and had been released at the end of his sentence prior to January 1, 1999, is subject to involuntary commitment under the Act. State v. Ward, No. 05-1287 CA32, 2005 WL 697420 (Fla. 11th Cir. Mar. 16, 2005). The trial court also held that the Act applies "to people who are currently incarcerated even for a non-sexual offense and who have been previously convicted for a sexually violent offense." Id. The court also concluded that the Act applies to any person who has ever been convicted of a sexually violent crime and who is thereafter incarcerated for any crime not defined as a sexually violent offense as long as that person is "currently incarcerated when the petition for civil commitment is filed." Id.

Ward petitioned the Third District for a writ of prohibition, arguing that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to proceed because he was not in custody for a sexually violent offense as that term is defined under the Act. Ward, 936 So.2d at 1144. The district court ruled that "under the better reading and interpretation of this section," an individual is subject to the Act "whatever may have been the reason for their qualifying confinement." Id. at 1145. Although the district court denied the writ, it certified the question to this Court as one of great public importance. Id. at 1150.

We granted review without argument and also granted Ward's motion for a stay of his commitment proceedings pending our review of his case.

ANALYSIS

As enacted by the Legislature in chapter 98-64, Laws of Florida, the Jimmy Ryce Act was applicable "to all persons currently in custody who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense ... as well as to all persons convicted of a sexually violent offense in the future." Ch. 98-64, § 17, at 454, Laws of Fla. (codified at § 916.45, Fla. Stat. (Supp.1998)). The Act became effective on January 1, 1999. Thus, the civil commitment procedure created by the Act applied to all persons in custody on January 1, 1999, who had been convicted of a sexually violent offense and all persons who are convicted of a sexually violent offense in the future.

In May 1999, the applicability provision was amended, in pertinent part, to provide that the Act applies "to all persons currently in custody who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense ... as well as to all persons convicted of a sexually violent offense and sentenced to total confinement in the future." Ch. 99-222, § 20, at 1385, Laws of Fla. (codified at § 394.925, Fla. Stat. (1999)). As defined in the Act, "total confinement" means that the person is currently being held in a secure facility operated by the Department of Corrections (DOC), the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), or the Department of Children and Family Services, or is serving an incarcerative sentence under the custody of DOC or DJJ and is being held in any other secure facility. § 394.912(11), Fla. Stat. (1999). Thus, total confinement means that the person is in state custody.

As amended in 1999, the Act applies in two different circumstances. Under the first clause of section 394.925, the Act applies to all persons in custody on the effective date of the Act, January 1, 1999, who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense. Under the second clause, it applies to those persons who were not in custody on the effective date if they have been convicted of a sexually violent offense and they are sentenced to total confinement after the effective date of the Act, i.e., "in the future." Ward contends that both of the requirements in the second clause of section 394.925 must occur in the future. The State, consistent with the rulings of the trial court and the Third District, contends that the statute only requires that the total confinement occur in the future and that the conviction of a sexually violent offense may have occurred in the past and need not be the basis of the individual's current confinement.

The intent of the Legislature must guide our interpretation of statutory language. That intent must be determined primarily from the language of the statute. Hale v. State, 891 So.2d 517 (Fla.2004); Miele v. Prudential-Bache Sec., Inc., 656 So.2d 470, 471 (Fla.1995). In Hale, we reviewed a case involving an involuntary commitment under the pre-1999 amendment version of the Act. Pertinent to the instant case, Hale claimed that the Act was not applicable to him because he was not currently incarcerated for a sexually violent offense, as defined in the statute. Hale admitted that at some time in the past he had been convicted of a sexually violent offense enumerated in the statute. At the time the State filed the petition seeking his commitment under the Act however, Hale was incarcerated for dealing in stolen property. This Court concluded that "the Act applies to all persons who are currently incarcerated and who at some point in the past have been convicted of a sexually violent offense." 891 So.2d at 522.

We based our decision in Hale on the plain language of the applicability statute, which "says nothing about whether the person must be currently incarcerated for [the sexually violent] offense," "does not state that it applies to all persons currently in custody for a sexually violent offense," and "does not otherwise link the current incarceration to the sexually violent offense." Id. at 521. We were also persuaded that this was the correct interpretation based on other sections of the Act. For example, we noted that the statute defines a "sexually violent offense" to include federal convictions or convictions from another state. See § 916.32(8)(g), Fla. Stat. (Supp.1998) (renumbered as § 394.912(9)(g), Fla. Stat. (1999)). A person in custody in Florida whose only conviction for a sexually violent offense is from another jurisdiction would not be "in custody" in Florida for a sexually violent offense. Thus, the Legislature need not have included out-of-jurisdiction convictions in the statutory definition of a sexually violent offense if it intended the Act to apply only to those persons whose current incarceration involved a sexually violent offense. Hale, 891 So.2d at 521-22; see also Tabor v. State, 864 So.2d 1171, 1174 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) (holding that Ryce Act does not require that current incarceration be for a sexually violent offense and cited with approval in Hale). Accordingly, we concluded that the Act applied to all persons who were currently incarcerated and who at some point in the past had been convicted of a sexually violent offense. Hale, 891 So.2d at 522. We explained that this construction "give[s] effect to all statutory provisions and construe[s] related statutory provisions in harmony with one another." Id. (quoting Forsythe v. Longboat Key Beach Erosion Control Dist., 604 So.2d 452, 455 (Fla. 1992)).

Although Hale involved the first clause of the applicability statute (i.e., those in custody at the time the Act took effect) and involved the pre-1999 version of the Act, we find our reasoning in Hale applicable to the instant case. The statutory definition of a sexually violent offense applies to both clause one and clause two of section 394.925 and still includes federal convictions and convictions in other states. See § 394.912(9)(g) (defining "sexually violent offense" as including "any federal conviction or...