Yates v. Buchanan

• Decision Date: 22 December 1964
• Docket Number: No. 64-379,64-379
• Parties: Harry Lee YATES, Appellant, v. T. A. BUCHANAN, Director of Public Safety, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 72

170 So.2d 72

Harry Lee YATES, Appellant, v. T. A. BUCHANAN, Director of Public Safety, Appellee.

No. 64-379.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

Dec. 22, 1964.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 14, 1965.

Engle, Pollack & Lewison, Miami, Ephraim Collins, Miami Beach, for appellant.

Richard E. Gerstein, State Atty., and Roy S. Wood, Asst. State Atty., for appellee.

Before BARKDULL, C. J., and CARROLL and TILLMAN PEARSON, JJ.

CARROLL, Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of remand entered by the circuit court in a habeas corpus action. The appellant Harry Lee Yates, was convicted on December 29, 1959, in the criminal court of record in Dade County of receiving and concealing stolen property. A sentence was pronounced promptly, for confinement for one year in the state prison.

The defendant instituted an appeal to the district court, but caused it to be dismissed in June of 1960. Thereupon, he moved in the criminal court of record for mitigation of his sentence. By that motion the defendant contended his physical condition was such that it would be harmful and inadvisable for him to be confined. The criminal court deferred ruling on the motion, and permitted the defendant to remain at liberty with isntructions to submit a doctor's certificate as to his condition of ill health at ensuing terms of court. Presumably that was done and the court was satisfied from term to term that the physical condition of the defendant remained adverse, because the defendant continued at liberty on that basis for more than four years after having been convicted and sentenced.

Thereafter, following death of the trial judge, the matter came before another judge of the criminal court who ended the probation, such as it was, and issued a commitment order for the purpose of having the one year sentence of confinement carried into effect. The defendant then sought a writ of habeas corpus in the circuit court contending he was being illegally held under the commitment order. Habeas corpus was denied and the petitioner was remanded to the director of public safety.

The circuit judge was of the opinion that the orders under which the defendant was in custody were not void and that the sentence had not become unenforceable. He then properly refused to consider and determine the merits or the correctness vel non of the order of the criminal court of record under which the petitioner was held for confinement, in deference to the rule, to which the circuit judge made due reference, as pronounced by the Supreme Court of Florida in State ex rel. Dato v. Himes, 134 Fla.App., 675, 184 So. 244, cited and followed by this court in the case of Clark v. State ex rel. Rubin, Fla.App.,App.1960, 122 So.2d 807.

The circuit judge gave due recognition to a limitation, imposed on the circuit court in a habeas corpus action which challenges custody or confinement under an order of another court as to which the circuit court has no appellate or supervisory jurisdiction, in which case the circuit court may question and determine the legality of the detention and release the party from orders of detention which are illegal and void, but is not free to grant the writ on a determination of irregularity, insufficiency in form or substance, or for other matters going to the propriety of the order. See Frederick v. Rowe, 105 Fla.App., 193, 140 So. 915, 916; State ex rel. Perky v. Browne, 105 Fla.App., 631, 142 So. 247, 250; State ex rel. Dato v. Himes, 134 Fla.App., 675, 184 So. 244; Clark v. State ex rel. Rubin, Fla.App.,App.1960, 122 So.2d 807, 812.

We are, however, inclined to disagree with the able circuit judge regarding the legality of the order of orders under which the petitioner is now held in custody, and we hold that both the sentence and the recent commitment order of the criminal court are now illegal and void. This is so because, barring certain exceptions not applicable here, a sentence can not be postponed indefinitely or for any considerable period. Although the sentence was pronounced promptly in the present instance, its enforcement was held off for a matter of years, which created the same status, as far as the defendant was concerned, as though the sentence had not been pronounced. When a sentence is withheld beyond the period for which it could be imposed, it may not be put into effect thereafter. Bateh v. State, Fla.App.,App.1958, 101 So.2d 869; State v. Bateh, Fla.App.,1959, 110 So.2d 7; Helton v. State, Fla.App.,1958, 106 So.2d 79. What was done here was, in effect, a probation, but as such it was an illegal procedure for several reasons. Chapter 948, Fla.App.,Stat., F . S.A., dealing with probation, provides in § 948.01(4) that probation can not be granted except under the custody of the parole commission. Here that was not done. Also, the statute provides that probation when allowed, be granted prior to sentencing (§ 948.01...