Opinion ID: 1670664
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: changes in the law

Text: Intent is a polestar that guides a court's inquiry into whether a change in the law should be given prospective or retroactive application. As a rule, a change in the statutory law is presumed to operate prospectively absent a clear showing of contrary intent. [6] A change in the decisional law in a nonfinal case, on the other hand, is presumed to operate in all other nonfinal cases. [7] A change in either the statutory or decisional law may operate retroactively when retroactive application is expressly provided, [8] but regardless of intent, the issue of retroactivity is ultimately controlled by overarching constitutional principles. The Court in Witt v. State, 387 So.2d 922 (Fla.1980), was confronted with the following question: must a change in the law that is announced in a nonfinal case be applied in final cases? [9] The Court held that only jurisprudential upheavals will be applied in final cases, and that evolutionary refinements in the law will not be applied in final cases. The Court explained: We emphasize at this point that only major constitutional changes of law will be cognizable ... under Rule 3.850. Although specific determinations regarding the significance of various legal developments must be made on a case-by-case basis, history shows that most major constitutional changes are likely to fall within two broad categories. The first are those changes of law which place beyond the authority of the state the power to regulate certain conduct or impose certain penalties. This category is exemplified by Coker v. Georgia , which held that the imposition of the death penalty for the crime of rape of an adult woman is forbidden by the eighth amendment as cruel and unusual punishment. The second are those changes of law which are of sufficient magnitude to necessitate retroactive application as ascertained by the three-fold test of Stovall and Linkletter [v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965)]. Gideon v. Wainwright , of course, is the prime example of a law change included within this category. In contrast to these jurisprudential upheavals are evolutionary refinements in the criminal law, affording new or different standards for the admissibility of evidence, for procedural fairness, for proportionality review of capital cases, and for other like matters. Emergent rights in these categories, or the retraction of former rights of this genre, do not compel an abridgment of the finality of judgments. To allow them that impact would, we are convinced, destroy the stability of the law, render punishments uncertain and therefore ineffectual, and burden the judicial machinery of our state, fiscally and intellectually, beyond any tolerable limit. Witt, 387 So.2d at 929-30 (citations and footnotes omitted). In brief, changes in the decisional law are divided into two subgroups for retroactivity purposes. A jurisprudential upheaval is a major constitutional change of law, announced by either this Court or the United States Supreme Court, that addresses a basic unfairness in the system. The unfairness must be so fundamental that it undermines confidence in the validity of final cases and outweighs the doctrine of finality. [10] An evolutionary refinement, on the other hand, is a conventional change that affords new or different guidelines for Florida courts in exercising their authority in applying the law. [11] Jurisprudential upheavals are applied retroactively; evolutionary refinements are not applied retroactively. We add that, as opposed to changes in the law, an entirely separate body of precedent, i.e., clarifications in the law, has no application under Florida law in the context of retroactivity. [12]