FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

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Case No. 5D2023-2681 

LT Case No. 2020-CF-001719

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MADDIE JOY LANGLOIS, 

Appellant, 

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA, 

Appellee. 

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On appeal from the Circuit Court for St. Johns County. 

R. Lee Smith, Judge.

Matthew J. Metz, Public Defender, and Joseph Chloupek, 

Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant. 

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Deborah 

A. Chance, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for 

Appellee. 

July 12, 2024

PER CURIAM.

AFFIRMED. 

EDWARDS, C.J., and HARRIS, J., concur. 

KILBANE, J., concurring specially, with opinion. 
2 

Case No. 5D2023-2681 

LT Case No. 2020-CF-001719 

KILBANE, J., concurring specially. 

I agree with the majority that this case should be affirmed. I 

write separately to address the application of section 934.03, 

Florida Statutes (2020), where, as here, the conduct alleged could 

support a charge of either the interception of a “wire” or an “oral” 

communication. 

Maddie Joy Langlois was originally charged with the unlawful 

interception of an “oral communication” in violation of section 

934.03(a)(1) after she recorded a phone conversation to which she 

was a party without the consent of the other party. She filed a 

motion to dismiss arguing that the other party did not have a 

reasonable expectation of privacy. After the hearing on Langlois’s 

motion to dismiss, the State amended the information and instead 

charged Langlois with unlawful interception of a “wire 

communication,” also in violation of section 934.03(a)(1). 

Thereafter, Langlois pled to unlawfully intercepting a “wire 

communication.” 

When a statute may be violated in separate and distinct ways, 

a person may be charged based on how the statute was violated. 

See generally Graham v. State, 207 So. 3d 135, 140 (Fla. 2016) 

(discussing double jeopardy “distinct acts” test for situations where 

single statute may be violated in multiple ways); Sanders v. State, 

101 So. 3d 373, 375 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012) (same). Florida’s 

wiretapping statute states, in relevant part, that “any person who 

. . . [i]ntentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures 

any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept any wire, 

oral, or electronic communication . . . is guilty of a felony of the 

third degree.” § 934.03(1)(a), 4(a), Fla. Stat. (2020) (emphasis 

added). Importantly, however, the statute separately defines “wire 

communication,” “oral communication,” and “electronic 

communication”: 

As used in this chapter: 
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(1) “Wire communication” means any aural transfer[1]

made in whole or in part through the use of facilities for

the transmission of communications by the aid of wire,

cable, or other like connection between the point of origin

and the point of reception including the use of such

connection in a switching station furnished or operated

by any person engaged in providing or operating such

facilities for the transmission of intrastate, interstate, or

foreign communications or communications affecting

intrastate, interstate, or foreign commerce.

(2) “Oral communication” means any oral communication

uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such

communication is not subject to interception under

circumstances justifying such expectation and does not

mean any public oral communication uttered at a public

meeting or any electronic communication.

. . . . 

(12) “Electronic communication” means any transfer of

signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or

intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part

by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic, or

photooptical system that affects intrastate, interstate, or

foreign commerce, but does not include:

(a) Any wire or oral communication;

(b) Any communication made through a tone-only paging

device;

(c) Any communication from an electronic or mechanical

device which permits the tracking of the movement of a

person or an object; or

1 “‘Aural transfer’ means a transfer containing the human 

voice at any point between and including the point of origin and 

the point of reception.” Id. § 934.02(18). 
4 

(d) Electronic funds transfer information stored by a

financial institution in a communications system used for

the electronic storage and transfer of funds.

Id. § 934.02(1)–(2), (12). 

These statutory definitions control our analysis. See Dep’t of 

Agric. Rural Dev. Rural Hous. Serv. v. Kirtz, 601 U.S. 42, 59 (2024) 

(explaining when legislative body “takes the trouble to define the 

terms it uses, a court must respect its definitions as ‘virtually 

conclusive.’” (quoting Sturgeon v. Frost, 587 U.S. 28, 56 (2019))). 

In recognition of these defined terms, we have previously 

explained that “wire communications” and “oral communications” 

are not the same. See Weeks v. State, 292 So. 3d 1251, 1252 n.2 

(Fla. 5th DCA 2020). “Notably, the definition of ‘wire 

communication’ does not include the same qualifying ‘reasonable 

expectation of privacy’ language as the definition of oral 

communication.” Id. Accordingly, if a person is charged under 

section 934.03(1)(a) for unlawfully intercepting a “wire 

communication,” there is no requirement that the person whose 

communication was intercepted have a reasonable expectation of 

privacy. See § 934.02(1), Fla. Stat. This is true even though a 

person charged under section 934.03(1)(a), the same statutory 

subsection, for unlawfully intercepting an “oral communication” 

would be subject to such a requirement. See id. § 934.02(2); see 

also Baker v. State, 636 So. 2d 1342, 1343–44 (Fla. 1994) (“Where 

the legislature has used particular words to define a term, the 

courts do not have the authority to redefine it.” (citing State v. 

Graydon, 506 So. 2d 393, 395 (Fla. 1987))); Deloatch v. State, 360 

So. 3d 1165, 1169 (Fla. 4th DCA 2023) (“When a statute includes 

an explicit definition, [courts] must follow that definition . . . .” 

(first alteration in original) (quoting Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 

914, 942 (2000))). However, all three defined communications 

remain subject to the consent requirement. See § 934.03(2)(d), Fla. 

Stat. (“It is lawful under this section . . . for a person to intercept a 

wire, oral, or electronic communication when all of the parties to 

the communication have given prior consent to such 

interception.”). 

Based on the plain language of section 934.02, situations may 

arise where the communication falls within the definition of both 
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“wire communications” and “oral communications”2; whereas the 

Legislature specifically excluded “wire or oral communications” 

from the definition of “electronic communication.” If a 

communication can be either a “wire” or “oral” communication, the 

decision regarding what charges should be filed, if any, is left to 

prosecutorial discretion, see State v. Cain, 381 So. 2d 1361, 1367 

n.8 (Fla. 1980) (explaining under separation of powers, courts will

not interfere with free exercise of prosecutor’s discretion to control

criminal prosecutions), but what must be proven to support the

charged conduct remains determined by statute.

Here, the State made the decision to amend the information 

and charge Langlois with intercepting a “wire communication”

instead of an “oral communication.” Langlois subsequently pled to 

this charge. The State’s decision to amend the charging document, 

as it did in this case, is a core function of prosecutorial discretion. 

See State v. Bloom, 497 So. 2d 2, 3 (Fla. 1986) (“Under Florida’s 

constitution, the decision to charge and prosecute is an executive 

responsibility, and the state attorney has complete discretion in 

deciding whether and how to prosecute.” (citing Art. II, § 3, Fla. 

Const.)); In re Wild, 994 F.3d 1244, 1260 (11th Cir. 2021) (“Broadly 

defined, the term ‘prosecutorial discretion’ refers to the soup-tonuts entirety of ‘[a] prosecutor’s power to choose from the options 

available in a criminal case, such as filing charges, prosecuting, 

not prosecuting, plea-bargaining, and recommending a sentence to 

the court.’” (alteration in original) (quoting Prosecutorial 

Discretion, Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014))). 

As technology continues to progress, the ease with which a 

conversation may be surreptitiously recorded progresses along 

with it. Consequently, prosecutors are being faced with even more 

circumstances where section 934.03(1)(a) may be implicated. As 

such, separation of powers requires courts to respect both the 

Legislature’s chosen statutory scheme under which these 

communications are to be classified as well as the State’s 

constitutionally delegated authority to choose how to prosecute 

these cases. Therefore, I concur. 

2 That said, not all “wire communications” or “oral 

communications” will fall under the definition of both. 
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Not final until disposition of any timely and 

authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 

9.331. 

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