Case ID: so2d_884/html/0495-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "VILLANTI, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In re COMMITMENT OF Moses HIGDON. Moses Higdon, Appellant, v. State of Florida, Appellee.
    No. 2D02-531.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.
    Oct. 8, 2004.
    
      James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Celene Humphries, Special Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
    Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Amanda Lea Colón, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Ap-pellee.
   VILLANTI, Judge.

Moses Higdon appeals from an order finding him to be a sexually violent predator and committing him to the custody of the Department of Children and Family Services pursuant to section 394.917(2), Florida Statutes (1999), the “Jimmy Ryce Act.” We affirm the commitment order. See Westerheide v. State, 831 So.2d 93 (Fla.2002). However, because Higdon argues that the jury was not properly instructed on the issue of volitional control, as required by Kansas v. Crane, 534 U.S. 407, 122 S.Ct. 867, 151 L.Ed.2d 856 (2002), we certify the same question certified as one of great public importance in Lee v. State, 854 So.2d 709, 716 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003), and Freeze v. State, 861 So.2d 1234, 1235 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003):

MAY AN INDIVIDUAL BE COMMITTED UNDER THE JIMMY RYCE ACT IN THE ABSENCE OF A JURY INSTRUCTION THAT THE STATE MUST PROVE THAT THE INDIVIDUAL HAS SERIOUS DIFFICULTY IN CONTROLLING HIS OR HER DANGEROUS BEHAVIOR?

Affirmed; question certified.

FULMER and SILBERMAN, JJ., concur.