Case Name: Patricia Ann BANKS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2019-02-04
Citations: 262 So. 3d 876
Docket Number: No. 1D17-4687
Parties: Patricia Ann BANKS, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: 
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Third Series
Volume: 262
Pages: 876–880

Head Matter:
Patricia Ann BANKS, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 1D17-4687
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
February 4, 2019
Andy Thomas, Public Defender, and Lori A. Willner, Assistant Public Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellant.
Ashley B. Moody, Attorney General, Sharon S. Traxler, Assistant Attorney General, and Amanda Stokes, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

Opinion:
Winokur, J.
Patricia Banks appeals the trial court's order revoking her probation for failing to pay court costs or completing community service. We find that the trial court did not make the findings required for revocation due to the failure to pay court costs, and that the community service option was not a mandatory condition of probation. Thus, we reverse the revocation of Banks' probation.
Condition 10 of Banks' probation order provided that she "will pay" court costs. Special condition 28 of the order provided that she "may perform [community service hours] in lieu of court costs." Banks neither paid court costs nor performed community service. The trial court did not determine if Banks had the ability to pay her court costs, but determined she had the ability to perform community service hours, and revoked her probation.
Before probation may be revoked, the trial court "must find that the probationer willfully and substantially violated a condition of probation." Del Valle v. State , 80 So.3d 999, 1012 (Fla. 2011). "In probation revocation proceedings for failure to pay a monetary obligation as a condition of probation, the trial court must find that the defendant's failure to pay was willful-i.e., the defendant has, or has had, the ability to pay the obligation and purposefully did not do so." Id. Because the trial court declined to make a determination as to Banks' ability to pay, we cannot affirm revocation on this ground.
We also cannot affirm revocation due to Banks' failure to perform community service because the probation order did not obligate her to do so. Banks was required to pay court costs ("You will pay . court costs") and permitted to perform community service hours in lieu of paying court costs (you "may perform" community service "in lieu of court costs"). This special condition provided Banks with an alternative to paying costs if she wished, but she did not. As such, the requirement to pay costs remained in place, and Banks cannot have her probation revoked for failing to pay costs unless the court finds that she has the ability to pay. See Williams v. State , 165 So.3d 870 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015) ; Crowley v. State , 124 So.3d 434, 436 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013).
The dissent agrees that "it is true that 'will' or 'shall' is generally mandatory and 'may' is generally permissive," but believes that we should look to the context and interpret "may" as "shall" with regard to the community service option. We agree that context matters, but the dissent makes too large a leap-interpreting a word that is "generally permissive" to mean the opposite-when considering that these words were written in a probation order. "Fundamental fairness requires that a defendant be placed on notice as to what he must do or refrain from doing while on probation." Hines v. State , 358 So.2d 183, 185 (Fla. 1978) ; see also Lawson v. State , 969 So.2d 222, 230 (Fla. 2007) ("In addition to the procedural due process that is required at the time of an alleged violation, the trial court and the probation order must also adequately place the probationer on notice of conduct that is both required and prohibited during the probationary period."). The dissent makes a cogent contextual argument, but we find that the order did not provide sufficient notice that, here, "may" meant "shall."
The State's intent may have been to set forth a mandatory alternative, and it could have done so with compulsory language-e.g., "You will perform community service if you do not pay court costs." Because the performance of community service was not a required condition of probation, we REVERSE the revocation of probation and REMAND for a determination as to Banks' ability to pay court costs.
Makar, J., concurs with opinion; Winsor, J., dissents with opinion.
Makar, J., concurring with opinion.
I concur that revoking Patricia Banks's probation was impermissible based on the language of her probation order, which required her to pay $ 671 of court costs. It did not require, however, that she perform community service if she lacked the ability to pay them. To the contrary, the clear language of the order merely allowed her to perform community service in lieu of paying these costs. Had it said Banks "must either pay court costs or do community service," a different meaning and outcome would result.
Under the probation order, the only question was whether Banks had the ability to pay the court costs at the time of the revocation hearing. After hearing testimony from Banks and her probation officer as to her financial situation and her failure to perform community service, the trial judge decided not to "get into the issue of the financial capabilities" of Banks to pay the court costs, in part, because "we're just used to that nobody pays them." Instead, the focus was solely on Banks's failure to complete community service hours, which the trial court deemed mandatory ("So I am going to find that there is a violation of probation. There is a willful and substantial violation as it relates to community service, not as to payment."). He modified Banks's probation, extending it by six months, and ordered that she complete community service hours during that time period.
In doing so, the trial court transformed a discretionary condition of probation into a mandatory one. By the probation order's plain language, Banks was required only to pay court costs. She had the discretion to perform community service, but it was not mandated. A box on a standard pre-printed probation form was checked that said "The Defendant may perform community service in lieu of court costs at the rate of $ 10 per hour." (Emphasis added). This option gave Banks the ability to reduce or fully satisfy the $ 671 owed by performing up to sixty-eight hours of community service if she chose to do so (she worked full-time, had physical ailments, and shouldered family responsibilities that, in her view, made additional physical work infeasible). Because the trial court did not address and resolve the only mandatory condition of probation, i.e., Banks's payment of court costs, reversal is warranted and a remand is necessary to address the matter anew.
That said, trial judges justifiably are frustrated when they lack objective financial information to assess the ability of probationers to pay court-ordered costs. Bemoaning this lack of information, the trial judge noted that "we just trust what the folks are telling us, that, 'I can't pay it.' " If defendants routinely say they can't pay court costs, or fail to provide objective evidence as to their financial status, mandatory community service hours become an option to consider; they don't generate revenue, but they do provide a means for probationers to do something productive to pay back society or better themselves (provided the hours aren't merely make-work).
Finally, to make community service a mandatory alternative, probation orders would simply have to say that defendants must pay court costs or perform community service, and that the willful failure to do one or the other is a violation of probation. Rephrasing the probation order at issue to achieve this result is preferable to an appellate court straining to conclude that "may" means "must." And a community service option is unlike an extension of a tax filing date. A tax extension is not an alternative to a tax filing: it merely postpones the inevitable; a tax return must be filed. In contrast, community service is an alternative for payment of court costs, albeit an imperfect one (the payment of court costs requires the defendant's money, while community service requires the defendant's labor). Given these differences and distinctions, a court should not impose a mandatory contribution of a defendant's labor in lieu of a payment of money absent clear language of the intent to do so.