Opinion ID: 1822394
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Substitution of Robbery Count Charged in Information

Text: Johnson was indicted for first-degree murder, kidnapping, sexual battery and third-degree grand theft. Subsequently, the State moved to consolidate the indictment with an information it had filed charging Johnson with robbery. In a hearing on the motion, defense counsel did not object to consolidation. The State noted that the grand theft count would be nolle prossed and become a lesser-included offense of robbery. During jury selection, the judge read to the jury an indictment containing all the charges, including robbery. The jury ultimately found Johnson guilty of first-degree murder via both premeditation and felony murder, guilty of both sexual battery and kidnapping as charged, and guilty of theft of less than $300 as a lesser included offense of robbery. Although he did not object below, Johnson now argues that in substituting a count of robbery filed by information for the grand theft count charged by indictment, the State invalidated the entire indictment and deprived the trial court of jurisdiction to try him on any of the counts charged. This claim is without merit. A capital crime may be charged only by indictment, but any other felony may be charged by either information or indictment. Art. I, § 15, Fla. Const.; Fla. R.Crim. P. 3.140(a). An indictment may be amended only to correct a defect, error, or omission in a caption or to eliminate surplusage. Fla. R.Crim. P. 3.140(c)(1), (i)(j). Otherwise, a trial court has no authority to issue an order amending an indictment. Snipes v. State, 733 So.2d 1000, 1004 (Fla.1999). Further, once an indictment has been returned, a grand jury cannot charge a new or different crime through an amendment to the indictment. Smith v. State, 424 So.2d 726, 729 (Fla.1982). However, the grand jury and state attorney have concurrent authority to charge noncapital crimes. State ex rel. Hardy v. Blount, 261 So.2d 172, 174 (Fla.1972). Even when the grand jury has declined to charge an offense by indictment, the state attorney may charge the same offense by information. Id.; State ex rel. Latour v. Stone, 135 Fla. 816, 185 So. 729, 730 (1939). In Latour, a grand jury investigated the conduct of a city official but did not issue an indictment. The state attorney then charged the official by information with malpractice in office. This Court denied the defendant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the order to take him into custody. Citing the predecessor to article I, section 15(a), the Court stated: By this amendment the grand jury and the prosecuting attorney were granted concurrent authority to file a formal accusation of the commission of a felony not involving capital punishment by indictment or information, respectively. There is some authority to the contrary, but we think the more logical rule is that the prosecuting officer having jurisdiction is authorized to file an information even though the grand jury may have failed or refused to find an indictment. Id. As in Latour, the State's method of charging robbery in this case is permissible because it concerned a noncapital crime. The State did not amend the indictment; instead, it dismissed a count charging grand theft and filed an information charging robbery based on the same conduct. The only actual change to the indictment was to dismiss a noncapital count that did not have to be charged by indictment in the first place. The state attorney's concurrent authority permitted charging the count by information. The case Johnson relies on to support his assertion of a jurisdictional defect, Akins v. State, 691 So.2d 587 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997), is not on point. In that case, the court accepted a guilty plea to attempted first-degree felony murder. Before Akins was sentenced, this Court determined in another case that the offense was nonexistent. Seeking to preserve the plea agreement, the parties jointly stipulated at sentencing to substitute attempted first-degree premeditated murder for attempted felony murder. Id. at 588. On appeal, Akins challenged the stipulation as an ineffectual amendment to the indictment. The First District agreed: The trial court . . . lacked jurisdiction to sentence appellant for attempted first-degree felony murder because this offense was no longer a crime at the time he was sentenced, and the court lacked jurisdiction to sentence appellant for attempted premeditated murder because an indictment cannot be amended by stipulation of the parties. An invited error analysis is inapplicable in the instant case because jurisdiction cannot be conferred on the court by agreement of the parties. Id. at 588-89. The indictment here was not actually amended, either by stipulation or otherwise, avoiding the jurisdictional pitfall in Akins. The trial court in this case therefore had jurisdiction over both the remaining counts in the indictment prosecuted by the State and the robbery count charged in the information.