Opinion ID: 1088668
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Public Defenders Under Article V, Section 18 of the Constitution

Text: In an effort to meet its responsibility to provide counsel to indigent defendants, as guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and applied to the states in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963), the Florida Legislature first established the Office of the Public Defender in 1963. See ch. 63-409, § 1, Laws of Fla. (enacting section 27.50, Florida Statutes (1963), which created the Office of the Public Defender). In State ex rel. Smith v. Brummer, 443 So.2d 957, 958-59 (Fla.1984), a case involving the authority of the public defender to accept an appointment from a federal court, this Court briefly discussed the history and purposes of the Office of the Public Defender. We explained: The Office of the Public Defender is a creature of the state constitution and of statute, not of the common law. The State of Florida, in order to meet its responsibility to provide the assistance of counsel guaranteed to defendants against state action by the sixth amendment of the United States Constitution, made applicable to states through the fourteenth amendment, has created this office in article V, section 18 of the Florida constitution. The functioning of that office is regulated by statute, sections 27.50-.59, Florida Statutes (1981), and by court rule. Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.111. Section 27.51 sets forth the duties of the public defender: To represent any indigents who face possible loss of liberty, or any indigent minor alleged to be a delinquent child, and to handle felony appeals in the state or federal courts. Brummer, 443 So.2d at 959 (footnote omitted); accord State ex rel. Smith v. Jorandby, 498 So.2d 948, 950 (Fla.1986). The Legislature approved a proposal to amend the constitution and elevate the Office of the Public Defender to the level of a constitutional officer, which was approved by the electorate and adopted in 1972. See art. V, § 18, Fla. Const.; see also Summary of Amendment Revising Florida Court Structure, Senate Joint Res. No. 52D (noting that [t]he position of public defender gains constitutional status in article V in the 1972 amendment). Article V, section 18 of the Florida Constitution, entitled Public Defenders, has remained relatively unchanged since its adoption. The constitutional provision states: In each judicial circuit a public defender shall be elected for a term of four years, who shall perform duties prescribed by general law. A public defender shall be an elector of the state and reside in the territorial jurisdiction of the circuit and shall be and have been a member of the Bar of Florida for the preceding five years. Public defenders shall appoint such assistant public defenders as may be authorized by law. Id. [5] Although the actual text of section 18 has been subject to little interpretation by the judiciary, the plain language is clear. The provision essentially sets forth the following minimal qualifications for the position: (1) each judicial circuit shall have one public defender; (2) the public defender must be elected for a term of four years; and (3) the public defender must be an elector of the State, reside in the territorial jurisdiction of the circuit in which he or she is elected, and be a member in good standing of The Florida Bar for the preceding five years. See id. Beyond these minimal qualifications, the constitution does not specify any additional details about how the public defender in each circuit is to operate or what duties are to be performed. In fact, section 18 clearly and unequivocally grants the Legislature the authority to control the duties to be performed, which naturally includes the types of cases for which public defenders are appointed. Other than article V, section 18, which only discusses a public defender's qualifications and does not restrict the types of cases that are to be handled, there are no provisions in the constitution that restrict the Legislature's inherent authority to, at a minimum, establish a system of court-appointed counsel to handle the public defender's conflict cases. As this Court has previously noted: The Constitution of this state is not a grant of power to the Legislature, but a limitation only upon legislative power, and unless legislation be clearly contrary to some express or necessarily implied prohibition found in the Constitution, the courts are without authority to declare legislative Acts invalid. The Legislature may exercise any lawmaking power that is not forbidden by organic law. Chiles v. Phelps, 714 So.2d 453, 458 (Fla. 1998) (quoting Savage v. Bd. of Pub. Instruction, 101 Fla. 1362, 133 So. 341, 344 (1931)). Absent a constitutional limitation, the Legislature's `discretion reasonably exercised is the sole brake on the enactment of legislation.' Bush v. Holmes, 919 So.2d 392, 406 (Fla.2006) (quoting State v. Bd. of Pub. Instruction, 126 Fla. 142, 170 So. 602, 606 (1936)). Thus, the mere creation of the OCCCRC as a system to handle cases in which the public defender has a conflict appears to be well within the Legislature's plenary power. However, in the context of this case, the concern is not whether the Legislature has the plenary authority to create a system to handle public defender conflict cases, but whether the system as created violates the qualifications for public defenders set forth in article V, section 18. Because section 18 is essentially a qualifications provision, that is, one that sets forth the minimum qualifications for a certain constitutional office, as opposed to one that outlines specific duties that such an office must perform, this Court's jurisprudence in this area is the most relevant. We have consistently held that statutes imposing additional qualifications for office are unconstitutional where the basic document of the constitution itself has already undertaken to set forth those requirements. State ex rel. Askew v. Thomas, 293 So.2d 40, 42 (Fla.1974) (holding that no qualifications were created in a constitutional provision stating that school board members shall be chosen as provided by law, because that provision only discussed the manner of choosing members not what their qualifications had to be); accord Cook v. City of Jacksonville, 823 So.2d 86, 91 (Fla.2002) ([T]he Legislature [i]s prohibited from adding to or taking from the qualifications . . . of this constitutionally authorized office.) (citing Thomas v. State ex rel. Cobb, 58 So.2d 173, 183 (Fla.1952)). For instance, the Court has found a law unconstitutional where it attempted to require a school board official to have a specific teaching certificate, where the constitution already listed the requirements. See Cobb, 58 So.2d at 176, 183. Likewise, the Legislature is prohibited from adding to the disqualifications of a constitutional office, where limitations are specifically expressed in the constitution, such as term limits for elected officials. See Cook, 823 So.2d at 91, 94-95 (holding that local charters unconstitutionally provided for term limits on city and county officers where article VI, section 4 of the Florida Constitution set forth the only disqualifications applicable to county offices); Maloney v. Kirk, 212 So.2d 609, 612 (Fla.1968) (holding a law unconstitutional that purported to amend the disqualifications for governor, namely, to disqualify persons who had accepted improper influences in an election, in an effort to avoid the results of an election, even though the disqualifications were clearly outlined in the constitution); In re Investigation of a Circuit Judge of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida, 93 So.2d 601, 604 (Fla.1957) (holding that the Legislature was not authorized to enact a statute providing for the removal of a judge in a substantially different manner than outlined in the constitution). A review of our case law concerning constitutional provisions that set forth the qualifications for office leads us to the following conclusions. If article V, section 18 of the constitution sets the qualifications for the Office of the Public Defender, namely, that there be one elected public defender in each circuit, who is an elector of the State, resides in that circuit, and has been a member in good standing of The Florida Bar for the preceding five years, then the Legislature is forbidden from substantially altering these qualifications. See Cook, 823 So.2d at 91; Thomas, 293 So.2d at 42; Maloney, 212 So.2d at 612. However, if the Legislature has not created another public defender and consequently has not altered the qualifications for that position, then the Act does not collide with article V, section 18. Accordingly, we next examine the pertinent provisions of chapter 2007  62 to shed light on the overarching question in this case  whether the OCCCRC and regional counsel are public defenders subject to article V, section 18 of the constitution.