Opinion ID: 1819622
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Plain Text of Section 948.03(5)(a)(7)

Text: The plain text of section 948.03(5)(a)(7) clearly conveys the intent of the Legislature. Further, the statute's plain and ordinary meaning must control, unless this leads to an unreasonable result or a result clearly contrary to legislative intent. Daniels, 898 So.2d at 64. Here, the plain text neither leads to an absurd outcome nor results in the creation or perpetuation of an unintended evil. Therefore, the analysis of the majority should have concluded with the plain text of the statute without applying such doctrines as the rule of lenity. The Legislature has not in any way indicated an intent to abandon the total prohibition against sexual offenders viewing, owning, or possessing any obscene, pornographic, or sexually stimulating visual or auditory material. § 948.03(5)(a)(7), Fla. Stat. (1999) (emphasis supplied). Rather, the Legislature simply clarified that this broad prohibition  includ[es] telephone, electronic media, computer programs, or computer services that are relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern. Id. (emphasis supplied). This is an illustrative clause separated by a comma and introduced by the participle including; therefore, under the rules of grammar and the rule of the last antecedent, the relative clause that are relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern modifies the grouping of nouns including telephone, electronic media, computer programs, or computer services, and does not modify the noun material contained in the separate, preceding clause any obscene, pornographic, or sexually stimulating visual or auditory material. Id.; [15] see Owens, 156 So.2d at 6 ([T]he established rules of grammatical construction [dictate] that, following an enumeration in series, a qualifying phrase will be read as limited to the last of the series when it follows that item without a comma or other indication that it relates as well to those items preceding the conjunction.); Bodden, 877 So.2d at 685 ([T]he legislature is presumed to know the meaning of words and the rules of grammar[.]); see also Gaffney v. Riverboat Servs. of Ind., Inc., 451 F.3d 424, 459 (7th Cir.2006) (stating that use of the participle including generally implies an illustrative application) (citing Black's Law Dictionary 687 (5th ed.1979)); In re Glunk, 342 B.R. 717, 729 (Bankr.E.D.Pa. 2006) (holding that the use of the participle including in 11 U.S.C. § 707(a) indicates that the three enumerated grounds for dismissal [for lack of a good-faith filing] are illustrative and not exhaustive). In this context, the reliance of Kasischke and the majority upon Porto Rico Railway, Light & Power Co. v. Mor, 253 U.S. 345, 40 S.Ct. 516, 64 L.Ed. 944 (1920), for a contrary rule of construction is misplaced and improper. See Initial Brief of the Petitioner on the Merits at 19-20; majority op. at 811-812. In Mor, the High Court stated that [w]hen several words are followed by a clause which is applicable as much to the first and other words as to the last, the natural construction of the language demands that the clause be read as applicable to all. 253 U.S. at 348, 40 S.Ct. 516. However, the Court applied this rule of construction to section 41 of the Jones Act of March 2, 1917, to avoid a potentially absurd result: Congress could not have intended to give the District Court [of Puerto Rico] jurisdiction of any controversy to which a domiciled alien is a party while denying under similar circumstances jurisdiction where a domiciled American is a party. Id. at 349, 40 S.Ct. 516. However, in contrast to Mor, an absurd result will not occur based upon a plain-text interpretation of section 948.03(5)(a)(7). Further, a  natural construction of the language [16] of section 948.03(5)(a)(7) demonstrates the grammatical incongruity of reading relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern as modifying a preceding clause which is separated from the former clause by (1) a comma, (2) an illustrative participle, and (3) a string of several nouns. Kasischke and the majority contend that a logical, grammatical reading of section 948.03(5)(a)(7)'s plain text (i.e., interpreting the clause relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern as modifying telephone, electronic media, computer programs, or computer services) would lead to an absurd or unreasonable result. See Initial Brief of the Petitioner on the Merits at 19-20; majority op. at 808, 813-814. This is entirely incorrect based upon the language and organization of the statute. The Legislature intended to prohibit the viewing, owning, or possessing by convicted sexual offenders of  any obscene, pornographic, or sexually stimulating visual or auditory material, and simply clarified that this prohibition  includ[es] telephone, electronic media, computer programs, or computer services that are relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern. § 948.03(5)(a)(7), Fla. Stat. (1999) (emphasis supplied). The majority is conspicuously silent with regard to much of this plain-text analysis. In my view, this silence represents an example of the dog that didn't bark. See Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Silver Blaze, in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894). [17] An absurd or unreasonable result does not occur based on the plain text of the statute because the including clause is illustrative [18] and clarifies the fact that the total-prohibition clause includes otherwise innocuous electronic, telephonic, and computer-based materials. The modifying language relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern merely relates these otherwise innocuous materials back to the total-prohibition clause (i.e., it clarifies that the only telephone, electronic media, computer programs, or computer services that convicted sexual offenders are prohibited from viewing, owning, or possessing are those that are obscene, pornographic, or sexually stimulating as a matter of law ). § 948.03(5)(a)(7), Fla. Stat. (1999) (emphasis supplied). According to the evident language, punctuation, and syntactic organization of the statute, there is no difference between an offender's possession of a tangible photograph and the same image stored as a file on the offender's computer or, for that matter, presented as an image on the offender's television. If the photograph is obscene, pornographic, or sexually stimulating as a matter of law, [19] then Kasischkeand others subject to the same default term of probation and community controlwould be prohibited from viewing, owning, or possessing the photo regardless of whether it is in print, electronic, or televisual form. This is so because the total-prohibition clause, which bans  any obscene, pornographic, or sexually stimulating visual or auditory material,  includ[es] telephone, electronic media, computer programs, or computer services that are relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern. § 948.03(5)(a)(7), Fla. Stat. (1999) (emphasis supplied). As stated in the statute, the total-prohibition clause applies [u]nless otherwise indicated in the treatment plan provided by the sexual offender treatment program. § 948.03(5)(a)(7), Fla. Stat. (1999). However, here, the record does not indicate that any qualified decision-maker ever individually tailored Kasischke's treatment plan by altering his default conditions of probation and community control with the approval of the appropriate court. Cf. § 948.03(6), Fla. Stat. (1999) (affording the appropriate court continuing jurisdiction to modify the offender's release conditions in proper circumstances). On the contrary, Kasischke's community-control officers advised him that the default total prohibition applied and that, consequently, he was prohibited from viewing, owning, or possessing any obscene, pornographic, or sexually stimulating visual or auditory material. § 948.03(5)(a)(7), Fla. Stat. (1999) (emphasis supplied). The majority also offers suspect reasoning with regard to its claim that there are at least four acceptable interpretations of the statute. See majority op. at 807-808. The only grammatically acceptable reading of the statute requires that the clause relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern modify telephone, electronic media, computer programs, or computer services, which is the same interpretative result reached in the other dissent. The majority's disjunctive listing of my interpretation of the statute and that offered in the other dissent is totally misleading. Both dissents have correctly interpreted the plain text of the statute; we simply arrive at that interpretation through different rationales. The number of interpretations advanced by the majority is overly generous. One proffered interpretation, which was the interpretation adopted by the Third District below, is incorrect as a matter of grammar. The Third District erroneously adopted the State's alternative, secondary argument, [20] which applied the clause relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern to sexually stimulating ... material, despite the fact that the adjectives obscene and pornographic also modify material. See Kasischke, 946 So.2d at 1159-61. As explained above, relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern cannot modify material due to the syntax and punctuation of the statute. Further, even if this language could somehow modify material, which it cannot, it would necessarily modify material in all of its applications (i.e., obscene material, pornographic material, and sexually stimulating visual or auditory material). Hence, the majority is really reduced to two of its acceptable interpretations of the statute. However, the majority's adopted reading is inconsistent with the statute as written; therefore, it is not an acceptable interpretation. See, e.g., Fla. Dep't of Revenue v. Fla. Mun. Power Agency, 789 So.2d 320, 324 (Fla.2001) (Under fundamental principles of separation of powers, courts cannot judicially alter the wording of statutes where the Legislature clearly has not done so.); Hawkins v. Ford Motor Co., 748 So.2d 993, 1000 (Fla.1999) ([T]his Court may not rewrite statutes contrary to their plain language.). [R]elevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern cannot modify the total-prohibition clause because of (1) the adjective any, (2) the illustrative participle including, (3) the comma preceding including, and (4) a series of intervening nouns. § 948.03(5)(a)(7), Fla. Stat. (1999); see also Bismarck Lumber, 314 U.S. at 100, 62 S.Ct. 1; Bodden, 877 So.2d at 685; Owens, 156 So.2d at 5; Wagner, 88 So.2d at 612-13. In sum, there is only one acceptable, grammatically sound interpretation of the statutethe plain-text interpretation outlined in this dissent as intended and written by the Legislature. The error of Kasischke and the majority exists in their conflation of the purely illustrative including clause with the ban created in the primary total-prohibition clause. That the Legislature felt compelled to add this illustrative clause in 1997 makes perfect sense. See ch. 97-308, § 3, at 5520, Laws of Fla. During the mid-to-late 1990s, Internet-based and other forms of electronic obscenity and pornography were steadily increasing. Some commentators viewed these new materials as qualitatively different from traditional print-based or otherwise tangible obscene or pornographic materials. For example, as two commentators have explained: The rapid, worldwide growth of the Internet leads to unprecedented opportunities in applications in business, communication, education, and entertainment. Commercial interests act as a driving force behind these applications, but one of the byproducts is sexlots of it. Sex is one of the most researched words on the Internet. Pornographic web sites have shown tremendous growth in the past few years, increasing by nearly 300 [sites] a day and [generating] $700 million in a year. [As of March 2002,] [t]hey total[ed] approximately 170,000. Cybersex or cyberporn came hand-in-glove with global interconnectivity. Pornography on the Internet is unique because sexually explicit materials posted on the Internet differ from traditional forms of pornographic materials, such as magazines and videos, in several important ways: (a) it is widely available through Bulletin Board Services (BBS) groups and via the World Wide Web through database accesses, interactive services, e-mail, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and real-time data feeds; (b) it is active and interactive through the presentation of materials in multimedia formats such as digitized moving images, animated sequences, sexually explicit texts, hot chats, and interactive sexual games; and (c) consumers also are producers of pornographic materials.... Pornography in cyberspace is pornography in society just broader, deeper, worse, and more of it. Ven-hwei Lo & Ran Wei, Third-Person Effect, Gender, and Pornography on the Internet, 46 J. Broad. & Elec. Media 13, 13-14 (2002) (some emphasis supplied) (citations omitted) (quoting Catherine A. MacKinnon, Vindication and Resistance: A Response to the Carnegie Mellon Study of Pornography in Cyberspace, 83 Geo. L.J.1959, 1959 (1995)). [21] Hence, the purely illustrative including clause is not surplusage because it clarifies that the total-prohibition clause includes (but is not limited to or by) the potentially qualitatively different electronic and telephonic materials contained within the including clause. The modifier relevant to the offender's deviant behavior pattern merely relates the otherwise innocuous materials outlined in the including clause back to the total-prohibition clause's outright ban of  any obscene, pornographic, or sexually stimulating visual or auditory material. § 948.03(5)(a)(7), Fla. Stat. (1999) (emphasis supplied). The construction advanced by Kasischke and the majority is simply unreasonable based upon the plain text of section 948.03(5)(a)(7) because such a construction is inconsistent with the language, punctuation, and syntax of the statute. Moreover, as I explain below, even if we move beyond the plain text of the statute, the relevant legislative history of section 948.03(5)(a)(7) confirms my interpretation of this subsection. [22]