Title: State v. Rodriquez

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

500 So. 2d 120 (1986)
STATE of Florida, Petitioner,
v.
Rene Ramous RODRIQUEZ, Respondent.
No. 64775.

Supreme Court of Florida.
December 24, 1986.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and W. Brian Bayly, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for petitioner.
No Appearance, for respondent.
BOYD, Justice.
This cause is before the Court on the petition of the State of Florida for review of the decision of the district court of appeal *121 reported as Rodriquez v. State, 443 So. 2d 236 (Fla. 5th DCA 1983). The decision of the district court conflicts with decisions of this Court. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const.
Respondent was convicted of robbery and grand theft. The evidence showed a taking of property from the possession of another by force, thus establishing the elements of the offense of robbery.[1] The same taking of property also provided the evidence of guilt of the second offense of which respondent was convicted, second-degree grand theft.[2] The district court of appeal found that grand theft was a lesser included offense of robbery and therefore held that the theft conviction could not stand.
At the outset the district court conceded that, where a single act violates two criminal statutes, separate punishments for the two offenses are permissible if the legislature intends such a result. The court correctly cited Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 103 S. Ct. 673, 74 L. Ed. 2d 535 (1983), as authority for this principle of constitutional law. However, the district court found a lack of such legislative intent here.
443 So. 2d  at 238. We find that the district court's conclusion regarding legislative intent was in error.
At the time of the criminal incident in question, a law of the State of Florida provided as follows:
775.021(4), Fla. Stat. (1981). The district court took the view that grand theft was a lesser included offense of robbery, which would exclude it from the operation of section 775.021(4). On this point the district court reasoned as follows:
443 So. 2d  at 239. This reasoning was erroneous for two reasons. First, the district court erred in emphasizing what the evidence showed "in the instant case." Second, the district court ignored the "clear legislative intent" expressed in section 775.021(4). We find that grand theft is not a lesser included offense of robbery and that therefore the legislative intent is that there be convictions and sentences for both offenses.
It is now well settled in Florida that the determination of whether one offense is a lesser included offense of another, at least for purposes of deciding whether there may be cumulative convictions based on a *122 single factual event, is made by analysis of the statutory elements, without regard to the allegations in a particular charging document or the evidence presented at a particular trial. State v. Baker, 456 So. 2d 419 (Fla. 1984); State v. Baker, 452 So. 2d 927 (Fla. 1984); Borges v. State, 415 So. 2d 1265 (Fla. 1982).
Borges v. State, 415 So. 2d  at 1267.
A correct analysis of the statutory elements of the two crimes, as set forth in footnotes one and two above, reveals that each offense contains at least one element that the other does not. Because second-degree grand theft contains an element  that the value of the property taken must be "$100 or more, but less than $20,000"  not included among the elements of robbery as defined by statute, second-degree grand theft is not a lesser included offense of robbery. This is so notwithstanding the fact that petit theft as defined in section 812.014 is a lesser included offense of robbery. See Hand v. State, 199 So. 2d 100, 102 (Fla. 1967) (larceny is "a necessarily included element of robbery").
We hold that second-degree grand theft is not a lesser included offense of robbery. If, in the course of a robbery, the robber takes property with a value of "$100 or more, but less than $20,000", he can be convicted of both robbery and second-degree grand theft. Accordingly, the decision of the district court of appeal is quashed. The case is remanded with directions to affirm both convictions.
It is so ordered.
McDONALD, C.J., and EHRLICH, J., concur.
SHAW, J., concurs specially with an opinion.
ADKINS and BARKETT, JJ., dissent.
OVERTON, J., dissents with an opinion.
SHAW, Justice, specially concurring.
I agree that the offenses here are separate and that convictions and sentences for both are appropriate. I agree also, with one major exception, with Judge Cowart's cogent dissenting opinion below. The exception I have concerns the role of the courts vis a vis that of the legislature in defining crimes and prescribing punishments. At one point the dissent reasons as follows:
Rodriquez v. State, 443 So. 2d 236, 245 (Fla. 5th DCA 1983) (Cowart, J., dissenting).
*123 As an abstract statement of law, I agree that the separation of powers doctrine recognizes the authority of the judicial branch to interpret the constitution. However, the constitution is not an empty vessel which the judiciary fills with its own views. The separation of powers doctrine mandates that we respect the constitutional prerogatives of the other branches of government. The deference we owe to the legislature in defining crimes and prescribing punishment is particularly strong. Absent a violation of a constitutional right, the legislature has plenary power to define crimes and prescribe punishments. Wilson v. State, 225 So. 2d 321 (Fla. 1969), reversed on other grounds, 403 U.S. 947, 91 S. Ct. 2286, 29 L. Ed. 2d 858 (1971); Farragut v. City of Tampa, 156 Fla. 107, 22 So. 2d 645 (1945).
The role of the courts in applying the double jeopardy clause to a legislative definition of crimes and prescribed punishments in a single trial has been resolved by Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 103 S. Ct. 673, 74 L. Ed. 2d 535 (1983). As the Court put it:
Id. at 366-69, 103 S. Ct.  at 678, 679 (footnote omitted).
Thus, in a single trial with multiple charges, the double jeopardy clause imposes no restriction on the power of the legislature to define crimes and prescribe cumulative punishments. The role of the Courts is to determine legislative intent. Missouri v. Hunter makes clear, contrary to Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S. Ct. 2221, 53 L. Ed. 2d 187 (1977), that the rule of Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S. Ct. 180, 76 L. Ed. 306 (1932), is a rule of statutory construction designed to assist courts in determining legislative intent. It is not a constitutional rule designed to determine whether double jeopardy exists. Regardless of whether two offenses proscribe the same conduct under Blockburger, the double jeopardy clause does not prohibit the legislature from authorizing cumulative punishment of the two offenses in a single trial. There is, however, an assumption underlying the Blockburger *124 rule that the legislature ordinarily does not intend to punish the same offense under two different statutes, absent a clear indication of contrary legislative intent. See Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S.  at 365, 103 S. Ct.  at 677.
The Florida Legislature has simplified immeasurably the task of Florida courts vis a vis double jeopardy, separate offenses, same offenses, and lesser included offenses by statutorily adopting the Blockburger rule as section 775.021(4), Florida Statutes (1983).[1] By its terms, the statute provides that there shall be separate sentences for each separate offense committed in the course of one criminal transaction. Thus, we have a clear statement that the Florida Legislature intends to punish separately offenses which meet the Blockburger rule. The logical corollary to the requirement that there shall be separate sentences for separate offenses is that there shall not be separate sentences if the offenses are not separate or one is a lesser included offense of the other. The legislature has, in effect, statutorily adopted a double jeopardy clause for single trials which gives defendants greater rights than those afforded by Missouri v. Hunter. If we follow the statute, we will have little, if any, occasion to reach constitutional issues of double jeopardy in the single trial setting.
Section 775.021(4) makes it relatively simple to determine whether two offenses are separate, the same, or whether one is a lesser included offense of the other. By its terms that statute explicitly defines what constitutes separate offenses. Implicit in the definition of separate offenses is a definition of offenses which are not separate.[2] If two offenses contain precisely the same statutory elements, they are the same offense; if the statutory elements of one offense are subsumed within a second offense containing one or more additional statutory elements, then the former is a lesser included offense of the latter and is not a separate offense under section 775.021(4).[3]
We continue to struggle with this rather simple rule,[4] because, as Judge Cowart astutely points out, we have not purged the legal system of the faulty reasoning underlying the discarded "single transaction rule" and the rules and practices implementing that rule and, I add, the outdated Schedule of Lesser Included Offenses, Florida Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases. See footnote to State v. Snowden, 476 So. 2d 191 (Fla. 1985).
OVERTON, Justice, dissenting.
I dissent for the reasons expressed in my dissent in State v. Baker, 452 So. 2d 927 (Fla. 1984). In my view petit theft is a necessarily lessor included offense of robbery and grand theft is a permissive lessor offense of robbery.
[1]  "`Robbery' means the taking of money or other property which may be the subject of larceny from the person or custody of another by force, violence, assault, or putting in fear." § 812.13(1), Fla. Stat. (1981).
[2]  One commits theft who "knowingly obtains or uses, or endeavors to obtain or to use, the property of another with intent: (a) To deprive the other person of a right to the property or a benefit therefrom. (b) To appropriate the property to his own use or to the use of any person not entitled thereto." § 812.014(1), Fla. Stat. (1981). If the property has a value of "$100 or more, but less than $20,000," the offense is grand theft of the second degree. § 812.014(2)(b)1.
[1]  In this respect, we are in a different position than the federal courts. The United States Congress has not statutorily adopted the Blockburger rule.
[2]  The assumption underlying Blockburger that the legislature ordinarily does not intend to punish the same offense twice, serves to reinforce this implicit definition.
[3]  In Bell v. State, 437 So. 2d 1057, 1060 (Fla. 1983), we stated:

If two statutory offenses have the exact, same essential constituent elements, or when one statutory offense includes all of the elements of the other, those two offenses are constitutionally "the same offense" and a person cannot be put in jeopardy as to both such offenses unless the two offenses are based on two separate and distinct factual events.
Id. (emphasis added). In a single trial setting this statement is contrary to Missouri v. Hunter. However, if "statutorily" is substituted for "constitutionality," then the statement accurately reflects Florida law.
[4]  See Green v. State, 475 So. 2d 235 (Fla. 1985) (Shaw, J., concurring in result), and Linehan v. State, 476 So. 2d 1262 (Fla. 1985) (Shaw, J., dissenting).