Case Name: Howard REED, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1985-05-02
Citations: 470 So. 2d 1382
Docket Number: No. 65323
Parties: Howard REED, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.
Judges: ADKINS, OVERTON, ALDERMAN, MCDONALD and EHRLICH, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 470
Pages: 1382–1387

Head Matter:
Howard REED, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.
No. 65323.
Supreme Court of Florida.
May 2, 1985.
Rehearing Denied July 11, 1985.
Geoffrey B. Dobson of Meredith, Dob-son, Ready and Reynolds, St. Augustine, for petitioner.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Margene A. Roper, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for respondent.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
This cause is before us on a certified question of great public importance. State v. Reed, 448 So.2d 1102 (Fla. 5th DCA 1984). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.
Petitioner was charged with criminal mischief under section 806.13(2)(a), Florida Statutes (1981), specifying that petitioner had willfully and maliciously broken a glass door panel of a St. Augustine bank, damage being less than $200. The charged offense is a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by a term of imprisonment not exceeding sixty days and/or a fine of up to $500. The county court refused to grant petitioner a jury trial but, in its appellate capacity, the circuit court determined that petitioner was entitled to a trial by jury. The circuit court reasoned that although petitioner was not entitled to a jury trial under Baldwin v. New York, 399 U.S. 66, 90 S.Ct. 1886, 26 L.Ed.2d 437 (1970), and Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968), he was entitled to a jury trial because this Court had extended the right to a jury trial for petty offenses by adopting Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.251. On further review, the district court granted a writ of certiorari quashing the circuit court order and certifying a question of great public importance to this Court:
Does a criminal accused have the right to a jury trial in a county court for a petty offense created by state statute, under the Florida Constitution or criminal rule 3.251?
Reed, 448 So.2d at 1105.
We first address the issue of our scope of review. Respondent urges that we limit our review to the certified question and not reach the issue of whether the United States Constitution grants petitioner the right to a jury trial. We decline to do so. First, our scope of review encompasses the decision of the court below, not merely the certified question. Hillsborough Association for Retarded Citizens, Inc. v. City of Temple Terrace, 332 So.2d 610 (Fla.1976); Rupp v. Jackson, 238 So.2d 86 (Fla.1970). Second, the court below addressed the right to a jury trial under the United States Constitution and properly so, since we have held "that the federal petty crime exception to the jury trial requirement in criminal prosecutions is also an exception under our own constitutional provisions." Whirley v. State, 450 So.2d 836, 839 (Fla.1984).
Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.251 provides "[i]n all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury...." Contrary to the circuit court, the district court held that this language merely tracks the language of article I, section 16 of the Florida Constitution and does not change or expand a criminal defendant's right to jury trial under our state constitution. We agree with the district court reasoning on this point and so hold.
On their face, article III, section 2 and the sixth amendment of the United States Constitution appear to mandate that defendants have an unrestricted right to jury trials in all criminal prosecutions. Nevertheless, the district court correctly recognized that there is a class of petty offenses which may be tried without a jury. Baldwin; Duncan. However, the district court then went on to hold that Baldwin and Duncan establish a brightline test between serious and petty crimes: serious crimes have a maximum penalty of more than six months' imprisonment or more than a $500 fine, and petty offenses have a maximum penalty of six months' or less imprisonment or a $500 or less fine. In support, the district court cited Hilliard v. City of Gainesville, 213 So.2d 689, 691 (Fla.1968), where we stated that "the U.S. Supreme Court has defined 'petty offenses' as those punishable by not more than six months imprisonment and a $500.00 fine. Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U.S. 373, 86 S.Ct. 1523, 16 L.Ed.2d 629 (1966)." Since Cheff and Hilliard issued, the United States Supreme Court has issued Baldwin, wherein the Court appeared to modify, or at least clarify, its view on the demarcation line between serious and petty crimes. As we read the plurality opinion in Baldwin, imprisonment of more than six months is sufficiently severe to elevate the offense to the serious crime category. However, the converse is not true: a maximum penalty of less than six months does not necessarily place a crime in the petty crime category. There are also other criteria relating to the nature of the crime which might elevate it into the serious crime category. See Baldwin 399 U.S. at 68-9 n. 6, 90 S.Ct. at 1887-8 n. 6.
The district court below did not have the benefit of Whirley wherein we enumerated four classes of serious crimes:
crimes that were indictable at common law, Callan v. Wilson, 127 U.S. 540, 8 S.Ct. 1301, 32 L.Ed. 223 (1888); crimes that involve moral turpitude, Schick v. United States, 195 U.S. 65, 24 S.Ct. 826, 49 L.Ed. 99 (1904); crimes that are ma-lum in se, or inherently evil at common law, District of Columbia v. Colts, 282 U.S. 63, 51 S.Ct. 52, 75 L.Ed. 177 (1930); and crimes that carry a maximum penalty of more than six months in prison. Baldwin v. New York, 399 U.S. 66, 90 S.Ct. 1886, 26 L.Ed.2d 437 (1970).
Whirley, 450 So.2d at 838. Thus, although the severity of the maximum authorized penalty is the most obvious criterion in determining whether a crime is a serious crime, there are other criteria which, if met, will mandate that the accused be granted the right to a jury trial. The Court, in District of Columbia v. Colts, 282 U.S. 63, 73, 51 S.Ct. 52, 53, 75 L.Ed. 177 (1930), put the question well: "[whether a given offense is to be classed as a [serious] crime, so as to require a jury trial, or as a petty offense, triable summarily without a jury, depends primarily upon the nature of the offense." This view is compatible, but not congruent, with our reading of the Florida Constitution which recognizes the right to trial by jury in those cases "in which the right was recognized at the time of the adoption of the State's first Constitution." State v. Webb, 335 So.2d 826, 828 (Fla.1976) (citations omitted).
We turn then to the dispositive question: was criminal mischief indictable at common law? The offense of criminal mischief is rooted in the common law offense of malicious mischief. Wharton's Criminal Law, § 485 (14th ed. 1981). In Florida, malicious mischief was codified and eventually relabeled as criminal mischief. The conclusion is inescapable. As this word "malicious" suggests, the offense is malum in se and was, thus, indictable at common law. District of Columbia v. Colts; Callan v. Wilson, 127 U.S. 540, 8 S.Ct. 1301, 32 L.Ed. 223 (1888); State v. Watts, 48 Ark. 56, 2 S.W. 342 (1886); 38 C.J. Malicious Mischief, § 1 at 357 (1925 edition); and Baldwin.
We recast the certified question for consonance with the facts and issue of the case: Does the accused in a criminal mischief prosecution have a right under the Florida and United States Constitutions to a jury trial? For the reasons set forth above, we answer in the affirmative. The decision of the district court is quashed and the cause remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
ADKINS, OVERTON, ALDERMAN, MCDONALD and EHRLICH, JJ., concur.
SHAW, J., concurs specially with an opinion.
BOYD, C.J., concurs in result only with an opinion.
. The alleged offense occurred on March 29, 1983. The charge should have been under section 806.13(1)(b)(1), Florida Statutes (Supp. 1982).
. In pertinent part, article III, section 2 reads "[t]he Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury_" In pertinent part the sixth amendment reads "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury...."
. Justices Black and Douglas, concurring in the judgment, would have gone further and simply abolished the distinction between serious and petty crimes by granting the right to a jury trial for all crimes. See Justice Black's concurring in judgment opinion, 399 U.S. at 74, 90 S.Ct. at 1891.
. Article I, sections 16 and 22 provide respectively, in pertinent part:
In all criminal prosecutions the accused . shall have the right . to have a speedy and public trial by impartial jury.... and
The right of trial by jury shall be secure to all and remain inviolate.
.It is not necessary to recount every step in the evolution. The key steps are seen in Laws of Florida (1868), subchapter 4, sections 61-8, 70, 71, 79 and subchapter 8, section 28; section 822.18 Florida Statutes (1973); and section 806.-13, Florida Statutes (Supp.1974).