Case Name: Everett Ward MILKS, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent; State of Florida, Appellant, v. Ferman Carlos Espindola, Appellee
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2005-02-03
Citations: 894 So. 2d 924
Docket Number: Nos. SC03-1321, SC03-2103
Parties: Everett Ward MILKS, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. State of Florida, Appellant, v. Ferman Carlos Espindola, Appellee.
Judges: WELLS, LEWIS, and CANTERO, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 894
Pages: 924–934

Head Matter:
Everett Ward MILKS, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. State of Florida, Appellant, v. Ferman Carlos Espindola, Appellee.
Nos. SC03-1321, SC03-2103.
Supreme Court of Florida.
Feb. 3, 2005.
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender and Anthony C. Musto, Special Assistant Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, FL, for Petitioner.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General and Christopher M. Kise, Solicitor General, Tallahassee, FL; Robert J. Krauss, Chief Assistant Attorney General and Katherine V. Blanco, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, FL,-for Respondent.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General and Christopher M. Kise, Solicitor General, Tallahassee, FL, and Richard L. Polin, Criminal Appeals Bureau Chief, Miami, FL, for Appellant.
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender and John Eddy Morrison, Assistant Public Defender, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, Miami, FL, for Appellee.

Opinion:
BELL, J.
We have before us two cases challenging the constitutionality of the Florida Sexual Predators Act, section 775.21, Florida Statutes (2003). In Milks v. State, 848 So.2d 1167 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003), the Second District Court of Appeal declared the Act constitutional, rejecting procedural-due-process and separation-of-powers challenges. In Espindola v. State, 855 So.2d 1281 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003), the Third District Court of Appeal declared the Act unconstitutional on procedural-due-process grounds. We approve the decision of the Second District in Milks and reverse the decision of the Third District in Espindola. We hold that the Act does not violate procedural due process or separation of powers and, as against these challenges, is constitutional. We decline at this time to consider the substantive-due-process and equal-protection challenges briefed by the parties but not addressed by the district courts below.
I. BACKGROUND
The Florida Sexual Predators Act lists certain offenses (and combinations of offenses) and mandates that a person convicted of any such offense be designated a "sexual predator." See § 775.21(4)(a)(l), Fla. Stat. (2003) (sexual predator criteria); § 775.21(5), Fla. Stat. (2003) (designation). Once designated as such, a "sexual predator" is subject, among other things, to the Act's registration and public-notification requirements. § 775.21(6), Fla. Stat. (2003) (registration); § 775.21(7), Fla. Stat. (2003) (public notification). The Act neither provides for any predesignation (or preregistration or pre-public-notification) hearing on the issue of an offender's actual dangerousness, nor does it provide the trial court with any discretion on the matter. If a person has been convicted of an enumerated offense, he must be designated by the court as a "sexual predator," and he is automatically subject to the Act's requirements.
In Milks v. State, 848 So.2d 1167 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003), the Second District declared the Act constitutional. The court rejected Milks' separation-of-powers challenge, citing Kelly v. State, 795 So.2d 135 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001) (rejecting separation-of-powers challenge to the Act), and State v. Cotton, 769 So.2d 345 (Fla.2000) (rejecting separation-of-powers challenge to the Prison Releasee Reoffender Punishment Act). See Milks, 848 So.2d at 1169. The Second District also rejected Milks' procedural-due-process challenge. Citing Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1, 123 S.Ct. 1160, 155 L.Ed.2d 98 (2003), the court held that "due process did not entitle the defendant to a hearing to establish whether he or she was dangerous, as that fact was not material under the statute." Milks, 848 So.2d at 1169.
In Espindola v. State, 855 So.2d 1281 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003), the Third District declared the Act unconstitutional on procedural-due-process grounds. "[I]n the absence of a provision allowing for a hearing to determine whether the defendant presents a danger to the public sufficient to require registration and public notification," id. at 1290, the Third District held that the Act "fails to provide minimal procedural due process." Id. at 1282. Relying on the statement of legislative findings contained in the Act, which state, among other things, that sexual predators "present an extreme threat to the public safety," § 775.21(3)(a), Fla. Stat. (2003), justifying the Act's registration and notification requirements, § 775.21(3)(b), Fla. Stat. (2003), the Third District concluded that "the determination of 'dangerousness' is of import to [the Act]," and, consequently, the Act's "total failure to provide for a judicial hearing on the risk of the defendant's committing future offenses[ ] makes it violative of procedural due process." Espindola, 855 So.2d at 1290. Because it concluded that "dangerousness" was a material element under the Act, the Third District held that Doe was not controlling. Id.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Procedural Due Process
Espindola and Milks argue, that the Act violates their rights to procedural due process. See U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 1 ("No State shall . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."); art. I, § 9, Fla. Const. ("No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law...."). This claim is based on the fact that the Act does not provide any procedure for determining in individual cases whether or not a person with an Act-qualifying conviction actually presents a danger to the community that would justify the imposition of the Act's requirements, particularly the Act's registration and public-notification requirements. The United States Supreme Court rejected an identical challenge to Connecticut's sex offender law in Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1, 123 S.Ct. 1160, 155 L.Ed.2d 98 (2003), and we see no reason why the same result is not mandated here.
In Doe, the United States Supreme Court considered a procedural-due-process challenge to Connecticut's sex offender law, which "applies to all persons convicted of criminal offenses against a minor, violent and nonviolent sexual offenses, and felonies committed for a sexual purpose." 538 U.S. at 4, 128 S.Ct. 1160. The-federal circuit court held that Connecticut's Act "violated the Due Process Clause because officials did not afford registrants a prede-privation hearing to determine whether they are likely to be 'currently dangerous.' " Id. at 4, 123 S.Ct. 1160 (quoting Doe v. Department of Public Safety, 271 F.3d 38, 46 (2d Cir.2001)). The Supreme Court, noting that "Connecticut . has decided that the registry requirement shall be based on the fact of previous conviction, not the fact of current dangerousness," reversed the circuit court "because due process does not require the opportunity to prove a fact [e.g., current dangerousness] that is not material to the State's statutory scheme." Doe, 538 U.S. at 4, 123 S.Ct. 1160. The Court went on to explain that
the fact that respondent seeks to prove — that he is not currently dangerous — is of no consequence under Connecticut's Megan's Law.... [T]he law's requirements turn on an offender's conviction alone — a fact that a convicted offender has already had a proeedurally safeguarded opportunity to contest. No other fact is relevant to the disclosure of registrants' information....
In short, even if respondent could prove that he is not likely to be currently dangerous, Connecticut has decided that the registry information of all sex offenders — currently dangerous or not— must be publicly disclosed.... [A]ny hearing on current dangerousness [would be] a bootless exercise.
Id. at 7-8, 123 S.Ct. 1160 (citations omitted).
The same analysis applies here. Just as the Connecticut Legislature did, the Florida Legislature has decided that the Act's designation, registration, and public-notification requirements, as well as the Act's other provisions, such as its employment restrictions, "shall be based on the fact of previous conviction, not the fact of current dangerousness." Id. at 4, 123 S.Ct. 1160. To provide Espindola and Milks with hearings at which they could contest the fact of current dangerousness would be pointless. Even if they could prove that they present absolutely no threat to the public safety, the Act would still require that they be designated as "sexual predators," that they register, and that the public be notified. As the Court held in Doe, "due process does not require the opportunity to prove a fact [here, that one is not dangerous] that is not material to the State's statutory scheme." 538 U.S. at 4, 123 S.Ct. 1160. The only material fact under Florida's statutory scheme, just as under Connecticut's, is the fact of a previous conviction — all of the burdens imposed by the Act, from the designation as a "sexual predator" to the registration and public-notification requirements to the employment restrictions, flow from the fact of a previous conviction — and both Espindola and Milks received "a procedurally safeguarded opportunity" to contest that fact. Id. at 7, 123 S.Ct. 1160. That is all that procedural due process requires.
B. Separation of Powers
The Act vests no discretion in the trial courts with respect to determining whether the Act should apply to a particular qualifying offender. See § 775.21(4)(a)(l), Fla. Stat. (2003); Robinson, 873 So.2d at 1212 ("Under the Act, the sole criterion for determining whether a defendant must be designated a 'sexual predator' is whether the defendant was convicted of a qualifying offense."). Es-pindola and Milks argue that this lack of discretion renders the Act violative of the Florida Constitution's separation-of-powers provision. They rely on Judge Pada-vano's concurring opinion in State v. Curtin, 764 So.2d 645 (Fla. 1st DCA 2000), where he suggested the possible constitutional infirmity because the statute "appears to "wrest from [the] courts the final discretion' to decide whether an offender should be declared a sexual predator." Id. at 648 (Padavano, J., concurring) (alteration in original) (quoting State v. Benitez, 395 So.2d 514, 519 (Fla.1981)).
We reject this argument. Although it is argued that the Act "wrest[s] from [the] courts the final discretion to decide whether an offender should be declared a sexual predator," Curtin, 764 So.2d at 648 (Padavano, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks omitted), this is not a constitutional infirmity. The Act is an exercise of the public-policy-making function of the Legislature to declare that persons who have been convicted of certain offenses should be designated as "sexual predators" and should be subjected to the registration, public-notification, and other requirements of the Act. It seems apparent that the real objection to the Act is that it "creates an inflexible rule that will stigmatize some offenders who are not within the three distinct classes of offenders the Legislature targeted in section 775.21(3)(a)." Id. The Act's inflexibility might well be a shortcoming, but it is not a separation-of-powers problem.
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons expressed above, we approve the decision of the Second District in Milks and reverse the decision of the Third District in Espindola.
It is so ordered.
WELLS, LEWIS, and CANTERO, JJ., concur.
ANSTEAD, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with an opinion, in which PARIENTE, C.J., and QUINCE, J., concur.
. We have jurisdiction under article V, section 3(b)(1) and (3) of the Florida Constitution.
. The 1995 version of the Act, the first version to include a public-notification provision, did provide for a pre-public-notification "dangerousness" hearing. Before one designated as a "sexual predator" could be subject to the 1995 Act's public-notification requirements, the circuit court would have to determine by a preponderance of the evidence that "the sexual predator poses a threat to the public" and that "notice to the community where the sexual predator temporarily or permanently resides is necessary to protect public safety." § 775.225, Fla. Stat. (1995). The Legislature's 1996 revisions, however, removed the pre-public-notification "dangerousness" hearing and made public notification dependent only on one's designation as a sexual predator, see § 775.21(7), Fla. Stat. (Supp.1996), which itself did not require a finding of "dangerousness," only the existence of a qualifying conviction (or combination of convictions).
. In Doe, the Court assumed (without deciding) that the Connecticut Act implicated constitutionally protected liberty interests. 538 U.S. at 7, 123 S.Ct. 1160. The question of procedural due process (or, for that matter, substantive due process) does not arise, of course, unless governmental action implicates a constitutionally protected interest. But the Court found it unnecessary to decide whether the Act implicated constitutionally protected liberty interests because even assuming that it did, the Act provided- constitutionally adequate procedures. Id. Although it is also unnecessary for us to decide the issue, for the same reasons the Court in Doe found it unnecessary, we have in fact already held that the Florida Sexual Predators Act implicates constitutionally protected liberty' interests. In State v. Robinson, 873 So.2d 1205 (Fla.2004), we applied the so-called "stigma-plus" test of Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 (1976), and held that the Act implicates the constitutionally protected liberty interest in one's reputation. Robinson, 873 So.2d at 1213-14. The only question, therefore, is whether the Act provides constitutionally adequate procedures before depriving a person- of this constitutionally protected interest. See Kentucky Dep't of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 460, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989). As we will explain below, the answer to this question is "yes, it does."
. See supra note 2 (noting that the 1996 version of the Act removed the pre-public-notifi-cation "dangerousness" hearing and made public notification, as well as designation and registration, dependent only on the fact of a previous conviction). The Third District attempted to distinguish Florida's Act from Connecticut's, and thereby take Florida's Act outside the scope of Doe, by emphasizing the express legislative findings contained in Florida's Act. The Florida Legislature found, among other things, that sexual predators "present an extreme threat to the public safety," § 775.21(3)(a), Fla. Stat. (2003), and that this threat justified the Act's registration and public-notification requirements. § 775.21(3)(b), Fla. Stat. (2003). The Third District is simply incorrect in concluding that these legislative findings make "dangerousness" a material fact under the Act. The Act's substantive provisions clearly make the Act's requirements turn only on the fact of previous conviction, not the fact of dangerousness. In fact, the 1996 version of the Act eliminated the pre-public-notification "dangerousness'' hearing and made the public-notification provision apply automatically upon designation and registration, which themselves applied automatically upon the fact of previous conviction. See Robinson, 873 So.2d at 1212 ("Under the Act, the sole criterion for determining whether a defendant must be designated a 'sexual predator' is whether the defendant was convicted of a qualifying offense."). The legislative findings on which the Third District relied do not make any of the Act's provisions turn on a finding of dangerousness. Quite to the contrary, those findings serve as the Legislature's asserted justification for not requiring individualized findings of dangerousness before applying the Act's provisions, that is, for treating as a class those convicted of certain crimes and applying the Act's requirements to them all.
. Whether the statutory scheme must make "dangerousness'' a material factor (before the State may apply any or all of the Act's provisions, or, as the dissent suggests, before the State may designate a person as a "sexual predator" rather than merely a "sexual offender") is a question of substantive due process. The substantive-due-process issue and possible equal-protection issues were not addressed by either district court below, and for this reason we do not consider them here. We express no opinion as to the merits of any of these possible claims.
. The dissent attempts to distinguish Florida's Act from Connecticut's, and thereby take Florida's Act outside the scope of Doe, by noting that Florida's Act designates a person convicted of an Act-qualifying crime as a "sexual predator," whereas Connecticut's Act employs the term "sexual offender." But in the context of our procedural-due-process analysis, this distinction is immaterial. (We express no opinion as to whether this creates a substantive due process problem. See supra note 5.) Regardless of the term employed, the requirements that one be designated as such, and then subject to registration and public notification, implicate the constitutionally protected interest in one's reputation. We do not think the dissent is suggesting that no due process protections would apply if the Act simply used the term "offender" rather than "predator." So the question, either way, is whether the person (whether he be designated a "sexual predator" or a "sexual offender") has been afforded a constitutionally safeguarded opportunity to the contest the facts which the State must prove before depriving him of his liberty interest in his reputation. Because all the State must prove under the Act is whether the person has been convicted of an Act-qualifying offense, both Espindola and Milks have been afforded constitutionally adequate procedures.