Title: Bouters v. State
Citation: 659 So. 2d 235
Docket Number: 83558
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: April 27, 1995

659 So. 2d 235 (1995)
Scott Paul BOUTERS, Petitioner,
v.
STATE of Florida, Respondent.
No. 83558.

Supreme Court of Florida.
April 27, 1995.
James B. Gibson, Public Defender, and S.C. Van Voorhees, Asst. Public Defender, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Daytona Beach, for petitioner.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Michael J. Neimand, Asst. Atty. Gen., Miami, and Parker D. Thomson and Carol A. Licko, Sp. Asst. Attys. Gen., Miami, for respondent.
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Manuel Alvarez, Asst. Public Defender, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, Miami, amicus curiae for The Florida Public Defender Ass'n, Inc.
SHAW, Justice.
We have for review Bouters v. State, 634 So. 2d 246 (Fla. 5th DCA 1994), wherein the district court expressly declared a state statute valid. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. We approve the district court decision.
The investigating officer entered the following facts in the complaint:
Bouters was charged with aggravated stalking, a third-degree felony, in violation of section 784.048(4), Florida Statutes (Supp. 1992). He unsuccessfully moved to dismiss the charge, claiming that the statute is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague, and then pled nolo contendere. The district court, in a brief opinion, ruled the statute constitutional, and Bouters now asks this Court to quash the district court's opinion.
Florida's stalking statute, section 784.048, reads as follows:
§ 784.048, Fla. Stat. (Supp. 1992). Bouters claims that this statute is both overbroad and vague.
The procedure for analyzing such a challenge to the facial validity of a statute is set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 102 S. Ct. 1186, 71 L. Ed. 2d 362 (1982):
Id., 455 U.S.  at 494-95, 102 S. Ct.  at 1191.
We first examine whether the statute infringes on Bouters' First Amendment rights or is overbroad because it inhibits the First Amendment rights of other parties. Bouters insists that the statute is overbroad because an arrest might ensue in almost any emotionally charged activity regardless of its constitutional sanctity if (a) the complainant and the police officer could agree that the activity was serving no legitimate purpose, and (b) the person who called the police exhibited substantial emotional distress. Political protest and investigative reporting, Bouters argues, could fall within the purview of the law. We disagree.
Stalking, whether by word or deed, falls outside the First Amendment's purview. The statute proscribes a particular type of criminal conduct defined at length in the statute. The conduct must be willful, malicious, and repeated, and form "a course of conduct" which would "cause [] substantial emotional distress" in a reasonable person in the same position as the victim (as explained below). See § 784.048, Fla. Stat. (Supp. 1992). The conduct must "serve [] no legitimate purpose." Id. Furthermore, the statute expressly provides that "[c]onstitutionally protected activity is not included within the meaning of `course of conduct.' Such constitutionally protected activity includes picketing or other organized protests." Id. Finally, to constitute aggravated stalking, the perpetrator must make a credible threat "with the intent to place [the victim] in reasonable fear of death or bodily injury." Id.
The conduct described at length in the stalking statute is clearly criminal and is unprotected by the First Amendment. "While the First Amendment confers on each citizen a powerful right to express oneself, it gives the [citizen] no boon to jeopardize the health, safety, and rights of others." Operation Rescue v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 626 So. 2d 664, 675 (Fla. 1993), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 114 S. Ct. 923, 127 L. Ed. 2d 216 (1994), aff'd in part sub nom. Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., ___ U.S. ___, 114 S. Ct. 2516, 129 L. Ed. 2d 593 (1994), on remand, 644 So. 2d 86 (Fla. 1994).
The record shows that Bouters harassed the victim, his ex-girlfriend, by repeatedly calling her on the telephone and threatening to harm her. He battered her and threatened to kill her. He then violated a domestic violence injunction by entering her home uninvited and left only when the sheriff's office was called. None of Bouters' acts qualify for First Amendment protection. His conduct was criminal and to the extent speech and other expressive activity was involved, "[w]hen protected speech translates into criminal conduct, even the Free Speech Clause balks." State v. Stalder, 630 So. 2d 1072, 1077 (Fla. 1994).
"A law that does not reach constitutionally protected conduct and therefore satisfies the overbreadth test may nevertheless be challenged on its face as unduly vague, in violation of due process. To succeed, however, *238 the complainant must demonstrate that the law is impermissibly vague in all of its applications." Village of Hoffman Estates, 455 U.S.  at 497, 102 S. Ct.  at 1193.
The United States Supreme Court has explained the doctrine of "vagueness":
Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-09, 92 S. Ct. 2294, 2298-99, 33 L. Ed. 2d 222 (1972) (footnotes omitted). In other words, a government restriction is vague if it "either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application." Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S. Ct. 126, 127, 70 L. Ed. 322 (1926).
In the present case, Bouters claims that the statutory definition of "harasses" is impermissibly vague. Under the statute, "[h]arasses" means "to engage in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that causes substantial emotional distress in such person and serves no legitimate purpose." § 784.048, Fla. Stat. (Supp. 1992). Bouters contends that this creates a subjective standard for "substantial emotional distress," and that an unduly sensitive victim may suffer such distress from entirely innocent contact.
The court in Pallas v. State, 636 So. 2d 1358 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994), correctly addressed this issue:
Id. at 1361 (citations omitted). We agree with this analysis and find that the statute is not impermissibly vague.[1]
Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the Florida stalking statute is neither unconstitutionally overbroad nor vague. We approve the district court decision in Bouters.
It is so ordered.
GRIMES, C.J., and OVERTON, HARDING, WELLS and ANSTEAD, JJ., concur.
KOGAN, J., concurs specially with an opinion.
KOGAN, Justice, specially concurring.
Bouter's brief may be fairly characterized as resting in part on an assertion of rights under the Florida Constitution, primarily because *239 of his extensive reliance on the statelaw holding of Perkins v. State, 576 So. 2d 1310 (Fla. 1991). Accordingly, I would analyze this case entirely under the Florida Constitution in keeping with the doctrine of primacy announced in Traylor v. State, 596 So. 2d 957 (Fla. 1992). I also write separately to stress that the only statute at issue in this case is subsection 784.048(3), Florida Statutes (Supp. 1992), dealing with aggravated stalking. The validity of subsections 784.048(2) and (4), Florida Statutes (Supp. 1992), involve distinct questions of law not at issue in this case.[2]
On the merits, I am in general agreement with the majority and with Judge Cope's analysis in Pallas v. State, 636 So. 2d 1358 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994). Aggravated stalking is in the nature of an aggravated form of assault, and it is arguable that the latter is even a necessarily lesser included offense of the former.[3] That being the case, overbreadth is not a tenable argument for invalidity, and vagueness is arguable only if the refinements added by subsection 784.048(3) are themselves vague. Because I cannot conclude that they are, I concur with the majority. I also reiterate my comments in the companion case, Gilbert v. State, 659 So. 2d 233 (Fla. 1995) (Kogan, J., specially concurring).
[1]  The remainder of Bouters' vagueness claims are without merit.
[2]  They are at issue in some of the companion cases.
[3]  We obviously are not addressing that issue in this case.