Case Title: State v. King

Citation: 282 So. 2d 162

Docket Number: 

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 1973-07-31T00:00:00Z

Document:
282 So. 2d 162 (1973)
STATE of Florida, Petitioner,
v.
Larry KING, Respondent.
No. 43727.

Supreme Court of Florida.
July 31, 1973.
Rehearing Denied September 24, 1973.
*163 Burton Young, Acting State's Atty., for petitioner.
Tobias Simon & Elizabeth J. du Fresne, Miami, for respondent.
BOYD, Justice.
This cause is before us on petition for writ of certiorari to the District Court of Appeal, Third District. That court has certified that its decision, reported at 275 So. 2d 274, is one passing upon a question of great public interest, giving this Court jurisdiction under Article V, § 3(b)(3), of the Constitution of the State of Florida, F.S.A.
The facts of the case, as reported by the District Court, are as follows:
On the basis of these facts, the District Court affirmed the order of the trial court and held that:
Subsequently, the following question was certified to this Court:
We hereby affirm the decision of the District Court of Appeal, Third District, but we feel constrained to point out that the answer to the question propounded by that court is neither (1), nor (2), but rather "none of the above", as will be explained below.
The plain language of Florida's Statute of Limitations is: "Prosecution for offenses not punishable by death must be commenced within two years after commission... ."[4] Of course, "[t]he time within which an offense is committed is a jurisdictional fact in all cases subject to limitation." Mitchell v. State.[5] In fact, a most significant burden of proof is placed upon the State in order to proceed once the jurisdiction of the Court is questioned through the raising of the Statute of Limitations.
As we noted in Horton v. Mayo:[6]
One year later, in Lowe v. State,[8] we further noted:
*165 Finally, as we concluded in Mead v. State:[10]
In the instant case, the trial judge found that the taking was complete when the six months ran during which the monies were to be turned over to Garrison. This finding is amply supported by Florida criminal law precedent. Exemplary of such precedent is Fitch v. State.[12] In Fitch, this Court stated that:
Thus, the crime of larceny was considered to be complete upon the taking. Or, in the words of the Court, "[t]he asportation may be completed by even the slightest removal of the thing stolen from its original position."[14]
The State contends that the instant case should be controlled by this Court's decision in State v. Pierce.[15] That decision, however, was specifically limited to the issue of larceny by an executor, and concerned Section 811.021(1)(c), Florida Statutes, F.S.A., which provided:
Limiting its opinion to the foregoing portion of the statute, this Court held that the crime of larceny was not complete until an overt act of actually withholding probated monies from an estate after official, judicial demand was made.
By referring loosely to the respondent as "a fiduciary", the State has attempted to bring him into the same category as one who is appointed by a deed, will, or by order of a court. The cases that the State has used as authority are civil cases in which the issue was whether or not a man would be held civilly liable for damages for breaches of a trusting relationship. These cases do not, nor do any other Florida cases, establish an all-inclusive, informal relation wherever one man trusts in and relies upon another that would be accepted as a categorical fiduciary for the imposition of criminal sanctions. Certainly, under normal statutory construction, respondent's relationship with Wolfson could not be equated to that of a statutory fiduciary, especially for the imposition of criminal *166 sanctions. In fact, the general term "fiduciary" is not used in the statute under which respondent is charged  only those specifically designated in the strict wording of the statute could be fiduciaries for purposes of applying the larceny statute.
Except in the restricted category of judicially and statutorily created fiduciaries, the national weight of authority overwhelmingly supports the view that "the Statute of Limitations begins to run from the time of commission of an offense, or when the crime is complete, not the date the crime is discovered."[16]
As stated by the Supreme Court of the United States in Pendergast v. United States:[17]
Finally, we turn to Toussie v. United States,[19] the United States Supreme Court's most recent consideration of the matter of Statute of Limitations, and we find that the law is completely consistent with that which has been described above as prevalent in Florida and nationally. Toussie involved a failure to register for the draft, and although the government agreed that the crime of non-registration occurred in 1959 when the defendant reached draft age and did not register, it argued that it continued to be committed each day that non-registration occurred until it was brought to the attention of the Draft Board. The Court stated:
The Court held that the legislature's silence in a statute is "stronger in favor of not construing this Act as incorporating a continuing-offense theory."[21] The Court concluded that when a statute of limitations bars a given prosecution, it must give effect to the clear expression of the legislative bill.
The Florida Statute of Limitations, like the federal one involved in Toussie, is completely silent on a concept of a continuing, discoverable offense. To create such an exception to the Statute of Limitations is to rewrite a plain and unambiguous statute. If this is a "loophole" that should be closed, we must turn to the legislature to do so. Until the statute is rewritten by the lawmakers, the Statute of Limitations in Florida criminal case runs from the date of the commission of the crime; and, in the case of a prosecution for larceny, the crime is complete  and committed  upon the taking.
Accordingly, the question certified to us by the District Court of Appeal, Third District, is answered as hereinabove set forth, and the decision of the District Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
CARLTON, C.J., and ERVIN, McCAIN and DEKLE, JJ., concur.
[1]  275 So. 2d  at 275-276.
[2]  275 So. 2d  at 277.
[3]  Case No. 72-368 (Fla.App.3d, Apr. 18, 1973).
[4]  Section 932.465, Florida Statutes, F.S.A., 1971.
[5]  157 Fla. 121, 25 So. 2d 73, 74 (1946).
[6]  153 Fla. 611, 15 So. 2d 327 (1943).
[7]  15 So. 2d  at 328.
[8]  154 Fla. 730, 19 So. 2d 106 (1944).
[9]  19 So. 2d  at 107-108.
[10]  101 So. 2d 373 (Fla. 1958).
[11]  Id. at 375. See also Weinert v. State, 35 Fla. 229, 17 So. 570 (1895); Warrace v. State, 27 Fla. 362, 8 So. 748 (1891); Nelson v. State, 17 Fla. 195 (1879).
[12]  135 Fla. 361, 185 So. 435 (1938).
[13]  185 So.  at 437.
[14]  Id.
[15]  201 So. 2d 886 (Fla. 1967).
[16]  21 Am.Jur.2d Criminal Law § 157 (1965).
[17]  317 U.S. 412, 63 S. Ct. 268, 87 L. Ed. 368 (1942).
[18]  Id. at 418, 63 S. Ct.  at 271. See also Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 77 S. Ct. 963, 1 L. Ed. 2d 931 (1957), in which the Court stated that the duration of a crime cannot be indefinitely lengthened merely because the crime itself is kept a secret, and merely because the criminal takes steps to bury his traces in order to avoid detection and punishment after the central criminal purpose has been accomplished.
[19]  397 U.S. 112, 90 S. Ct. 858, 25 L. Ed. 2d 156 (1970).
[20]  Id. at 114-115, 90 S. Ct.  at 860.
[21]  Id. at 120, 90 S. Ct.  at 863.