Case Title: State v. Griffith

Citation: 331 So. 2d 313

Docket Number: 

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 1976-04-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
331 So. 2d 313 (1976)
STATE of Florida, Petitioner,
v.
Eartha Lee GRIFFITH, Respondent.
No. 47137.

Supreme Court of Florida.
April 14, 1976.
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and Stephen R. Koons, Asst. Atty. Gen., for petitioner.
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Richard S. Power, Asst. Public Defender, for respondent.
SUNDBERG, Justice.
We review by certiorari a decision of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, reported at 309 So. 2d 252.
Respondent Eartha Lee Griffith entered a plea of guilty to a charge of second degree murder in the Circuit Court in and for Orange County on May 25, 1972. Adjudication of guilt and imposition of sentence were withheld, and she was placed on probation for a period of ten years.
In August, 1973, an affidavit of violation of probation was taken before the Circuit Court for Orange County and an arrest warrant was issued for the respondent. The affiant, Griffith's probation officer, charged that respondent had violated three conditions of her probation: (1) she had been unemployed for nearly twelve months; (2) she had failed to follow instructions from the affiant that she appear on several *314 occasions at the probation supervisor's office and also she had failed on several occasions to submit a daily list of three prospective employers; and (3) she had fallen behind in paying court costs and fees related to her defense to the murder charge. Griffith was taken into custody on August 9, 1973, upon the warrant supported by affidavit and was arraigned the following day. After hearing, an order of revocation was entered on October 25, 1973, and Griffith was thereafter found guilty of murder in the second degree and duly sentenced.
Contending that Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 92 S. Ct. 2593, 33 L. Ed. 2d 484 (1972), and Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 93 S. Ct. 1756, 36 L. Ed. 2d 656 (1973), required a preliminary hearing before a second hearing at which probation was revoked, respondent appealed to the Fourth District Court of Appeal. With one judge dissenting, that court reversed the order of probation revocation and stated, "This constitutes a denial of due process with the consequence being that appellant's probation must be reinstated." The dissenting opinion argued that the majority's decision conflicted with the earlier pronouncement of that District Court of Appeal in Singletary v. State, 290 So. 2d 116 (4th D.C.A.Fla. 1974), cert. dismissed, 293 So. 2d 361 (Fla. 1974). It was through that conflict of decisions that the jurisdiction of this Court was invoked. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const.
In Singletary, supra, the court set out the various methods by which probationers may be arrested and detained for revocation hearings:
Eartha Griffith was detained under the usual affidavit-judicial warrant procedure described above. She argued successfully before the District Court of Appeal that this procedure violates minimal constitutional standards for revocation hearings imposed by Morrissey and Gagnon, supra. In these two landmark cases, the United States Supreme Court found the procedures by which Iowa revoked parole (Morrissey) and Wisconsin revoked probation (Gagnon) to be constitutionally deficient. Neither state had laws requiring any hearing before probationary status was removed, let alone an initial informal hearing to determine the existence of probable cause to believe the parolee or probationer had violated his agreement with the state. It is this minimal preliminary hearing which these decisions found necessary to bring the Iowa and Wisconsin procedures up to constitutional standards. Such a hearing may be held before any "neutral and detached" board or official other than the individual recommending probation. Morrissey, supra.
We believe that the Florida procedure as exercised in the instant case provides sufficient due process safeguards to render unnecessary an additional preliminary hearing. Eartha Griffith's probation officer executed an affidavit and jurat detailing the probationary conditions which she believed had been violated; a warrant was issued by a "neutral and detached" magistrate, a circuit judge; Griffith was arrested and arraigned before a judicial officer; and a revocation hearing was held at which respondent was represented by counsel and permitted to call and cross-examine witnesses. At no time did Griffith demand a preliminary hearing. It is difficult to discern how her rights were prejudiced by failure to give her such a hearing. In fact, near the end of the revocation hearing, the circuit judge commented:
We expressly adopt the holding of Singletary, supra, from which the District Court of Appeal erroneously departed in the instant case:
We are not unmindful that respondent spent 78 days in jail between the time of her arrest and the date of her probation revocation hearing. Rule 3.131(b), Fla.R. Cr.P., establishes the right to an adversary preliminary hearing if no formal charge *316 has been made within 21 days of the arrest, and respondent contends that incarcerated probationers should have an identical right. See In re Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, 309 So. 2d 544 (Fla. 1975). But even if this proposition were accepted as true, there is no showing that Griffith asked for such a hearing. What respondent seems to be arguing for is a speedy trial rule in revocation proceedings rather than the existence of a specific deficiency in current preliminary hearing procedures. Oaks v. Wainwright, 305 So. 2d 1 (Fla. 1974), is cited as authority in this regard. In Oaks, this Court held that there should have been a preliminary hearing when the revocation hearing occurred more than two months after the petitioner's arrest. However, that case involved a parole revocation, in which the arrest warrant was issued by the Parole and Probation Commission without the intervention of any judicial officer, and thus Morrissey's strictures must apply. Like Morrissey and Scarpelli (who, in accordance with Wisconsin's probationary practice, had been sentenced to prison before the sentence was suspended conditional upon his compliance with probation conditions as determined by an administrative board), Oaks had, of course, been sentenced. In Florida, the trial judge does not pronounce and impose a sentence of imprisonment upon a defendant who is to be placed on probation,[1] except in the special county jail split-sentence procedure described in Section 948.01 (4), Florida Statutes.
In the instant case, as in Singletary, the warrant was issued by a "neutral and detached" magistrate, and so the problem of the same body's both determining the existence of probable cause and prosecuting thereon does not arise. Furthermore, the conclusion of this Court in Oaks that the petitioner's due process rights were violated was based at least in part on a 101-day delay in the State's return to Oaks' petition for writ of habeas corpus, a circumstance which we do not find sub judice.
The United States Supreme Court has recently held that, while a person arrested without a warrent is entitled to a timely judicial determination of probable cause, such cause for arrest may be determined without an adversary hearing and on the basis of hearsay and written testimony. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S. Ct. 854, 43 L. Ed. 2d 54 (1975). Surely the constitutional standard can be no higher for one who, like respondent, is a probationer arrested by the requisite warrant.
Accordingly, the writ of certiorari is granted and the decision of the District Court of Appeal is quashed with directions to remand the cause to the trial court for reinstatement of the judgment and sentence of that court.
ADKINS, Acting C.J., and ENGLAND, J., and TYRIE A. BOYER, District Judge, concur.
HATCHETT, J., dissents.
[1]  Fla.R.Cr.P. 3.790(a).