Case Name: Michael WARD, Petitioner, v. The STATE of Florida, Respondent
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2006-08-16
Citations: 936 So. 2d 1143
Docket Number: No. 3D05-1277
Parties: Michael WARD, Petitioner, v. The STATE of Florida, Respondent.
Judges: Before COPE, C.J., and SHEPHERD and ROTHENBERG, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 936
Pages: 1143–1157

Head Matter:
Michael WARD, Petitioner, v. The STATE of Florida, Respondent.
No. 3D05-1277.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Aug. 16, 2006.
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Roy A. Heimlich, Assistant Public Defender, for petitioner.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Thomas C. Mielke, Assistant Attorney General, for respondent.
Before COPE, C.J., and SHEPHERD and ROTHENBERG, JJ.

Opinion:
SHEPHERD, J.
The petitioner, Michael Ward, seeks a writ of prohibition to bar the lower court from commencing a trial to have him declared a "sexually violent predator" and involuntarily committed to the custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families ("the Department") for care, control, and treatment pursuant to the Jimmy Ryce Act, ("the Ryce Act"), § 394.910-930, Fla. Stat. (2005). The question we must answer is whether the State is authorized under the Ryce Act to seek to involuntarily commit to the Department for care and treatment, a person who has been convicted of a sexually violent crime in the past and who is brought into "total confinement," as that term is defined, after January 1, 1999, for any crime, sexual or non-sexual in nature. We hold that it is, and therefore deny the writ.
Facts
In 1969, Ward allegedly committed two separate acts of rape in violation of section 794.01 of the Florida Statutes (1969). In 1970, he was found incompetent to stand trial on these charges and was committed to the South Florida State Hospital. Ward escaped from this confinement in 1976 and was re-arrested after allegedly committing several other crimes, including two more rapes. On October 5, 1976, Ward pled guilty to all four rape charges. In all four cases, Ward admitted he had broken into each victim's house to commit the crime. He was sentenced to fifty years in state prison on each charge, with the sentences to run concurrently. In 1983, this court reversed the 1969 convictions on the ground that Ward was misad-vised by counsel of the consequences of his plea. Ward v. State, 433 So.2d 1221, 1223 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983). As a result, the State nolle prossed the 1969 charges.
In the intervening years, Ward mounted post-conviction challenges to his fifty-year sentence on the remaining 1976 offenses, so that by 1993 he was released from state prison. Since then, Ward has, from time to time, been re-incarcerated and sentenced for various non-sexual offenses, most recently and significantly in January 2004 to thirty-six months in state prison for burglary of an occupied conveyance and possession of burglary tools. At that time, however, no sexual offense was alleged in addition to the burglary charge. The State filed its petition to commit Ward under the Ryce Act during the course of this incarceration.
Discussion
Ward argues that the trial court lacks jurisdiction to proceed because he was not in custody for a sexually violent offense, as that term is defined under the Ryce Act, see § 394.912(9), Fla. Stat. (2004), at the time the State filed its petition. For us to properly evaluate this claim, we turn to the jurisdictional provision of the Ryce Act in effect at the time the State commenced its Ryce Act proceeding. See Hale v. State, 891 So.2d 517, 520 (Fla.2004)(applying the jurisdictional provision of the Ryce Act in effect at the time the proceeding against Hale was commenced). The provision reads as follows:
Applicability of [the][A]ct
This part applies to all persons currently in custody who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense, as that term is defined in s. 394.912(9), as well as to all persons convicted of a sexually violent offense and sentenced to total confinement in the future.
§ 394.925, Fla. Stat. (1999).
Grammatically speaking, it is clear that this section of the Ryce Act consists of two independently acting clauses. First, the Ryce Act "applies to all persons currently in custody who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense" as that term is defined; and second, to "all persons convicted of a sexually violent offense and sentenced to total confinement in the future." It is also apparent from a cursory review of the two clauses, aided by pronouncements of the Florida Supreme Court and lower appellate courts of this state, that the clauses are possessed of parallel and complimentary features. For example, it is now settled law that the purpose of the first clause is to address sexual predators who were in custody on the Ryce Act's effective date, January 1, 1999, see State v. Atkinson, 831 So.2d 172, 173-74 (Fla.2002)(confirming that the phrase "currently in custody" in the first clause means in custody as defined by the Act on January 1, 1999), while the second clause is meant to address all other sexual predators. In addition, the use of the term "total confinement" has been interpreted to be co-extensive with "in custody" despite the employment by the legislature of different terminology in each clause. Gordon v. Regier, 839 So.2d 715, 718-19 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003)(concluding that "the word 'custody' is synonymous with 'total confinement' " for purposes of section 394.925). Finally, of course, the potential committee must, in either case, be possessed of a qualifying sexual offense.
It is against this textual and interpretive backdrop that we examine the as yet unresolved question of the reach of the second clause inearcerative provision. If Ward were a potential "first clause" committee, the State would possess the unquestionable right to proceed. Hale, 891 So.2d at 521 (holding that although the defendant must be in custody on January 1, 1999, the custody need not be one for a qualifying sexual offense). In our case, Ward is a potential "second clause" committee. Although we admit the language of the second clause is not a model of clarity, we consider that under the better reading and interpretation of this section of the Ryce Act, potential second clause committees, like potential first clause committees, are subject to the reach of the Ryce Act whatever may have been the reason for their qualifying confinement.
We believe this conclusion is supported by a careful consideration of the text of the section of the Act that we are required to construe, applicable rules of statutory construction, and the history and purpose of the Act.
I.
We begin our explication for reaching this result with an analysis of the text of the provision in question, see Hale, 891 So.2d at 521 ("the intent of the legislature must guide [the court's] analysis, and that intent must be determined primarily from the language of the statute"), and find instructive the placement of the language added to section 916.45 as it was being renumbered and amended to assume its current form.
At the time the Ryce Act was enacted, its jurisdictional provision read as follows:
Applicability of [the][A]ct
Sections 916.31-916.49 apply to all persons currently in custody who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense, as that term is defined in s. 916.32.(8), as well as to all persons convicted of a sexually violent offense in the future.
§ 916.45, Fla. Stat. (Supp.1998). At its very next annual session, convened within weeks of the January 1, 1999 effective date of the Ryce Act, the legislature amended this provision to read "[t]his part applies to all persons currently in custody who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense, as that term is defined in s. 394.912(9), as well as to all persons convicted of a sexually violent offense and sentenced to total confinement in the future." Ch. 99-222, § 20, Laws of Fla. (emphasis added). Although the legislature could have made it incontestably clear that it was merely limiting the Ryce Act's scope by inserting the amending language "and sentenced to total confinement" after the word "convicted" in the second clause of the section and replacing the preposition "of' with "for," so that the clause would have read "... as well as to all persons convicted and sentenced to total confinement for a sexually violent offense in the future," it elected instead to insert the added language between the substantive phrase "sexually violent offense" and the prepositional phrase, "in the future." We presume the legislature understands the meaning of the language it uses and the implications of its placement in a statute. See, e.g., Rinker Materials Corp. v. City of N. Miami, 286 So.2d 552, 553 (Fla. 1973)("In statutory construction, statutes must be given their plain and obvious meaning and it must be assumed that the legislative body knew the plain and ordinary meanings of the words."); State ex rel. Bie v. Swope, 159 Fla. 18, 24, 30 So.2d 748, 751 (1947)("[t]he legislator is presumed to know the meaning of words and the rules of grammar . "); Sailboat Apartment Corp. v. Chase Manhattan Mortgage & Realty Trust, 363 So.2d 564, 568 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978)("[T]he legislature is presumed to know the meaning of words and the rules of grammar and the court will give the generally accepted construction to both the phraseology of the act and the manner in which it is punctuated."). In this case, we consider the legislature's placement of the amending language between the substantive phrase "sexually violent offense" and the prepositional phrase "in the future," evidence that the legislature had more in mind than a post-effective date reduction of the reach of the Ryce Act, the deductively unavoidable interpretation of the amended second clause sought by Ward.
Having thus concluded that the additional phrase "and sentenced to total confinement," as drafted and inserted into the Ryce Act by the legislature in 1999, does not ineluctably require the narrow interpretation pressed by Ward, we now turn to principles of statutory construction. Seagrave v. State, 802 So.2d 281, 286 (Fla.2001)(holding that in cases of uncertainty, courts frequently resort to traditional canons of statutory construction). We begin this examination by referring first to a recognized canon of grammatical statutory construction known as the doctrine of the last antecedent, which holds that "relative and qualifying words, phrases and clauses are to be applied to the words or phrase immediately preceding, and are not to be construed as extending to, or including, others more remote." City of St. Petersburg v. Nasworthy, 751 So.2d 772, 774 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000). Because the legislature elected to insert the amending language into the statute as it did, immediately prior to the qualifying prepositional phrase "in the future," this canon impels us to conclude that the legislature intended the prepositional phrase "in the future" to modify the added language "and sentenced to total confinement" but not the remote phrase "sexually violent offense." Our belief that the 1999 amendment was intended to expand and harmonize the second clause with the first rather than reduce its reach is fortified by this analysis.
II.
If the analysis presented thus far is not sufficient, however, our examination of the interaction of the section of the Ryce Act under review here with other sections of the Ryce Act compels the conclusion we draw in this case. Forsythe v. Longboat Key Beach Erosion Control Dist., 604 So.2d 452, 455 (Fla.1992)(in construing intent, courts must "give full effect to all statutory provisions and construe related statutory provisions in harmony with one another")(emphasis added). Although as Ward aptly points out, the purposes of the statute would be served by applying it, as the Baker Act is applied, to all persons who are dangerous — i.e., all "sexual predators" as defined by the statute — the legislature, for reasons of its own, when it originally adopted the Ryce Act in 1998, elected to narrow the reach of those who could then be gathered in for care or treatment to those persons who were "currently in custody" on the effective date of the Ryce Act. See discussion at p. 4, supra. While it is arguable that the legislature selected a single "effective date" prism for purposes of subjecting to treatment those individuals who had at any time in the past committed a qualifying offense, were "in custody," and were placed in prison, we find that interpretation much less plausible and harmonious with a legislative intent that those who had earned a qualifying sexual offense in the past would be potentially subject to the Ryce Act if they were either in custody on January 1, 1999, or at some future date committed an act which resulted in their "total confinement." In fact, we find the notion argued by the petitioner in support of relief here that the legislature necessarily intended a single-day prism for purposes of gathering all past offenders to be rationally farfetched. Cf. Gordon, 839 So.2d at 716 n. 1 (stating that while the petitioner could not be committed under the "first clause" of section 394.925 because he was not in custody at the time the proceeding was commenced, "[t]he [Ryce] Act could be applicable to [him] in the future should he ever be sentenced to total confinement"); Tabor v. State, 864 So.2d 1171, 1174 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004)(stating in a "clause one" case that "Appellant's argument that his current incarceration must be as a result of a sexually violent offense is refuted by . other provisions of the Ryce Act....").
Other provisions of the Ryce Act support this conclusion. For example, section 394.913 of the Ryce Act requires certain agencies, including the Florida Department of Corrections, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, and Florida Department of Children and Families, who may have custody of a potential committee, to give notice and provide certain medical and other information to a multi-disciplin-ary team of health professionals for a determination of whether the person is a sexually violent predator within the meaning of the Ryce Act "at least 545 days prior to [ ] anticipated release" in the case of the Department of Corrections, or "180 days prior to [ ] anticipated release" in the case of the remaining agencies. § 394.913(1), Fla. Stat. (1999). The office of the state attorney must likewise be notified. Id. Notably, notice to the multidisciplinary team and the state attorney is required not only for persons who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense in this state, but also those "persons [who] "ha[ve] never been convicted of a sexually violent offense in this state but [have] been convicted of a sexually violent offense in another state or in federal court...." Id. (emphasis added). Section 394.913 clearly contemplates Ryce Act filings against individuals brought into custody in Florida after January 1, 1999, for a non-sexual offense where the qualifying sexual offense is a prior conviction in a non-Florida state court or a federal court anywhere in the United States. The interpretation of the second clause of section 394.925 pressed by Ward would render this portion of section 394.913(1) of the Florida Statutes meaningless. We decline to adopt such an interpretation. See Connecticut Nat'l Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253, 112 S.Ct. 1146, 117 L.Ed.2d 391 (1992)(noting that "courts should disfavor interpretations of statutes that render language superfluous"); Johnson v. Feder, 485 So.2d 409, 411 (Fla.1986)("Statutory interpretations that render statutory provisions superfluous 'are, and should be, disfavored'.")(internal citation omitted); see also Tabor, 864 So.2d at 1173 ("Because [clause one] does not link current incarceration to [a] sexually violent crime, and expressly includes convictions for such crimes from jurisdictions other than Florida, we hold that the act does apply to appellant.")(emphasis added).
Secondly, we observe that the definitional section of the original version of the Ryce Act, § 916.32(10), Fla. Stat. (Supp. 1998), defined "total confinement" to include only persons "currently being held in any physically secure facility being operated or contractually operated for the Department of Corrections, the Department of Juvenile Justice, or the Department of Children and Family Services." However, during the course of the same 1999 session of the legislature, during which by our view the legislature set about expanding and harmonizing "clause one" and "clause two" of then section 916.45 of the Florida Statutes, the same legislature expanded the definition of "total confinement" to state that "total confinement" for the "purpose of person[s] serving an incarcerative sentence under the custody of the Department of Corrections or the Department of Juvenile Justice [shall include persons] being held in any other secure facility for any reason." § 394.912(10), Fla. Stat. (1999)(emphasis added). In our view, this is further evidence that the legislature was thinking expansively during the course of its consideration of the 1999 amendments to the Ryce Act. If the legislature wished to limit Ryce Act incapacitation proceedings based upon post-January 1, 1999 incarcerations solely to persons in "total confinement" for a qualifying sexually violent offense, we are confident the legislature knew how to, and could have economically done so. See, e.g., § 912.32(3), Fla. Stat. (Supp.l998)(limiting "Department" to mean only the Department of Children and Family Services); see also State v. Marshall, 695 So.2d 719, 724 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996), aff'd, 695 So.2d 686 (Fla.1997)(not-ing that "if the 1991 legislature wanted to eliminate, or limit, [duties required by it], the legislature knew very well how to revise or amend [the statute]").
Thirdly, in determining the effectiveness of the 1999 Ryce Act, the Florida legislature required the Department of Corrections to keep statistical track of individuals qualifying for the Ryce Act and specifically noted that "At a minimum, the information that must be collected and compiled for inclusion in the reports includes: whether the qualifying offense was the current offense or the prior offense.... " Ch. 99-222, § 27, at 1388, Laws of Fla. We see little utility in such a requirement if the legislature were of a view that "second clause" proceedings were limited to those persons who both were convicted of sexual violence after January 1, 1999, and were in confinement for that offense at the time the proceeding was initiated.
III.
We reach a final level of comfort that the scope of the second clause of the Ryce Act encompasses otherwise qualifying sexual offenders whether or not they are then incarcerated for a sexual or non-sexual offense through a consideration of both the history and purpose of the Ryce Act, and recent rule-making by the Florida Supreme Court with respect to the Ryce Act.
When the Ryce Act was adopted in May 1998, it was in response to a heinous crime that had been committed on a small child in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Our high court has found that the Ryce Act was intended to "serve[ ] the dual state interests of providing mental health treatment to sexually violent predators and protecting the public from these individuals," Westerheide v. State, 831 So.2d 93, 112 (Fla.2002), by enabling the state to bring into involuntary confinement for care and treatment those individuals who fall within "[that group of] small but extremely dangerous number of sexually violent predators" for whom the existing involuntary commitment programs may be inadequate but whose predilection for "engaging in repeat acts of predatory sexual violence is high." § 394.910, Fla. Stat. (Supp.1998). Some years earlier, our supreme court stated, "[t]he provisions of statutes enacted in the public interest," such as the Ryce Act which we here construe, "should be given a liberal construction in favor of the public." Dep't of Envtl. Regulation v. Goldring, 477 So.2d 532, 534 (Fla.1985). Although we believe a sound reading of the text and correct application of the rules of statutory construction impels the result we reach in this case, we also believe our construction of the statute comports with the history and purpose behind the Ryce Act.
In so concluding, we finally note that within the last several months, the Florida Supreme Court approved an amendment to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.172, requiring that a defendant who now or in the future pleads guilty to any offense be advised of the potentiality of a future Ryce Act proceeding, "if the defendant has been previously convicted of [a sexually violent] offense." In re Amendments to Fla. Rule of Grim. Procedure 3.172, 911 So.2d 763, 765 (Fla.2005)(emphasis added). This advice would amount to an incorrect statement of law and have no effect other than engendering unnecessary dread in defendants considering or making pleas if prior convictions for sexually violent offenses could not later be used as a basis for a Ryce Act action. Amended Rule 3.172 is consistent with our reading of the Ryce Act.
Because we find that section 394.925 authorizes the State to seek to involuntarily commit Ward for care and treatment under the Jimmy Ryce Act, we deny the writ. Nevertheless, because we consider this case to have significant statewide impact, we certify the following question to the Florida Supreme Court as one of great public importance pursuant to Article V, section 3(b)(4) of the Florida Constitution:
WHETHER A PERSON WHO WAS NOT IN CUSTODY ON JANUARY 1, 1999, IS ELIGIBLE FOR CIVIL COMMITMENT UNDER THE JIMMY RYCE ACT IF THAT PERSON WAS SENTENCED TO TOTAL CONFINEMENT AFTER JANUARY 1, 1999, BUT THE QUALIFYING CONVICTION OCCURRED BEFORE JANUARY 1,1999.
Petition denied.
. The State contests whether we have jurisdiction to decide this issue. We determine we have jurisdiction under Article V, section 4(b)(3) of the Florida Constitution. See Atkinson v. State, 791 So.2d 537, 538 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001), aff'd, 831 So.2d 172 (Fla.2002).
. Ward was advised during his 1976 plea colloquy that if he went to trial and was found guilty on any of the four rape charges, he could receive the death penalty. In 1969, rape was a capital crime in Florida. In 1972, Florida's death penalty law was declared unconstitutional. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972). Accordingly, this court held that Ward was misadvised concerning the maximum penalty which could be imposed for the 1969 rapes and vacated his pleas. Ward, 433 So.2d. at 1222.
.As originally adopted, this provision lacked the phrase "and sentenced to total confinement." See § 916.45, Fla. Stat. (Supp.1998). In the 1999 session of the Florida legislature, it was inserted and the provision renumbered. See discussion, infra, at n. 5.
. Not surprisingly, the intra-section parallelism and uniformity that has been found to exist in section 394.925 is mirrored by the similarly parallel and uniform action of other sections of the Act on the two jurisdictional clauses of section 394.925. See, e.g., § 394.913, Fla. Stat. (1999)(requiring notice of anticipated release to the state attorney and a multi-disciplinary team appointed by the Florida Department of Children and Families of all potential committees under the Act)(emphasis added); § 394.9135, Fla. Stat. (1999)(providing that in the event the release of a potential committee becomes "immediate for any reason" and notice has not been given, the potential committee must in either case be transferred briefly to an appropriate secure facility so that the state may evaluate the individual on an expedited basis and consider the filing of a Ryce Act proceeding).
. As enacted in 1998, the Ryce Act appeared in chapter 916, which is entitled "Mentally Deficient and Mentally Ill Defendants." See § 916.31-916.49, Fla. Stat. (Supp.1998); Ch. 98-64, § 2-23, at 446-55, Laws of Fla. The 1999 amendment moved the Ryce Act to chapter 394, which is entitled "Mental Health." See Ch. 99-222, § 3-24, at 1373-87, Laws of Fla. The amendment to the scope of the Ryce Act was made at that time. Ch. 99-222, § 2-22, Laws of Fla.
. Like the Ryce Act, the Baker Act also authorizes involuntary commitment of individuals with significant, recognized, diagnosable infirmities that make them a danger to themselves and the community. See § 394.451-394.4789, Fla. Stat. (2005). The Ryce Act is intended to serve and incapacitate individuals for whom a Baker Act commitment is inappropriate or, at a minimum, less than optimal. See § 394.910, Fla. Stat.
. Because we are certifying this matter as one of great public importance, we note that there is a significant fact pattern not directly addressed by the dissent, namely one in which an individual (1) was convicted of the qualifying offense after January 1, 1999, (2) was incarcerated for that offense after January 1, 1999 and released, and (3) later incarcerated for a non-qualifying offense. We assume that the petitioner and the dissent would eschew Ryce Act jurisdiction over this individual while incarcerated for the second offense. See dissenting opinion, infra at 26-27, 33 n. 5. But for the timing, of course, this individual would have been a potential first clause committee. An affirmative answer to the certified question resolves this hypothetical case. It does not disturb us if, for example, the state elects to exercise its discretion against the commencement of a Ryce Act proceeding at one juncture and later makes a different discretionary decision. Discretionary calls are the daily fare of prosecutors. Nor, based upon our reading of the statute and its purpose, would we be disturbed if the state inadvertently missed its chance to commence a Ryce Act proceeding against such a hypothetical defendant during the first incarceration but elected to later proceed. We consider all of this to be within the contemplation of the Ryce Act as amended and not legally prohibited.