Opinion ID: 1829778
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Judge Cope's Opinion

Text: I would quash the decision under review and adopt Judge Cope's opinion in full as properly construing the meaning of the statute in question: The question before us is how to interpret the portion of the Jimmy Ryce Act which defines who is eligible for civil commitment. See § 394.925, Fla. Stat. (2004). The statute is simple, and quite clear. So far as pertinent here, an offender is covered by the Act if he is convicted by a qualifying offense after January 1, 1999, and is sentenced to total confinement for that offense. See id. Since the petitioner, Michael Ward, was not convicted of a qualifying offense after January 1, 1999, it follows that he is not covered by the Act and is entitled to have the civil commitment proceeding terminated. I therefore dissent on the merits but concur in certifying the question of great public importance. I. In 1976 petitioner-defendant Ward was adjudicated guilty (pursuant to a guilty plea) in four sexual battery cases. As explained in the majority opinion, he was imprisoned for those crimes and later released. On January 1, 1999, the Jimmy Ryce Act took effect. The defendant was not in custody at that time. In 2004 the defendant was sentenced to thirty-six months in prison for burglary of an unoccupied conveyance and possession of burglary tools. These were not sexual offenses and are not qualifying offenses under the Jimmy Ryce Act. In January 2005, the State initiated civil commitment proceedings against the defendant under the Act. The State maintains that the defendant qualifies for civil commitment because of (a) his 1976 sexual battery convictions, and (b) the fact that he was incarcerated, albeit for a nonsexual offense, after January 1, 1999. The defendant moved to dismiss and for immediate release. The defendant argued that under the Act, the 1976 sexual battery convictions do not count. The defendant contends that an offender qualifies for civil commitment ifand only ifhe is convicted of a qualifying offense after January 1, 1999, and incarcerated for that offense. The trial court denied the defendant's amended motion to dismiss. The defendant has filed a petition for writ of prohibition, contending that he does not qualify for civil commitment as a matter of law. [n. 8] [N. 8.] The majority opinion correctly states that a petition for writ of prohibition is an available remedy where the defendant does not qualify for civil commitment under the Act as a matter of law. See majority opinion at 480 n. 1; Atkinson v. State, 791 So.2d 537, 538 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001), aff'd, 831 So.2d 172 (Fla.2002). II On January 1, 1999, the Jimmy Ryce Act went into effect. It created a civil commitment procedure for offenders who have been convicted of a qualifying sex crime and meet specified commitment criteria. See § 394.912(9)(10), Fla. Stat (2004). The Act contained an applicability section which spelled out whom the Act covered. The first groupnot involved in this appeal  consisted of persons in custody on January 1, 1999, who had been convicted of a qualifying offense. That provision is not applicable here because petitioner-defendant Ward was not in custody on January 1, 1999. The second group is the one involved here. The original applicability section stated: 916.45 Applicability of act.Sections 916.31-916.49 apply to all persons currently in custody who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense, as that term is defined in s. 916.32(8), as well as to all persons convicted of a sexually violent offense in the future. § 916.45, Fla. Stat. (Supp.1998) (emphasis added). Under this language, an offender qualified if he was convicted of a sexually violent offense in the future. The effective date of the Act was January 1, 1999, so in the future meant after January 1, 1999. Therefore an offender qualified for civil commitment if he was convicted of a sexually violent offense after January 1, 1999. The majority opinion and this opinion are unanimous on that point. Defendant Ward was not convicted of a sexually violent offense after January 1, 1999. Under the original version of the Jimmy Ryce Act, the defendant did not qualify for civil commitment. III. In May, 1999, the legislature added new language to the applicability section. The issue in this case is how to interpret the amended statute. The 1999 amendment added  using the word anda second requirement for an offender to qualify for civil commitment: the defendant had to be sentenced to total confinement. As amended, the applicability section stated: 394.25 Applicability of act. This part applies to all persons currently in custody who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense, as that term is defined in s. 394.912(9), as well as to all persons convicted of a sexually violent offense and sentenced to total confinement in the future. § 394.25, Fla. Stat. (emphasis added). The Act already required that an offender had to be convicted of a qualifying offense after January 1, 1999. The Legislature simply added a second requirement: the defendant had to be sentenced to total confinement. A dictionary definition of and states that it is used as a function word to indicate connection or addition esp. of items within the same class or type; used to join sentence elements of the same grammatical rank or function. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 43 (1977). The sentence elements here are: Original Version [convicted of a sexually violent offense] [in the future]. Amended Version [convicted of a sexually violent offense] [and] [sentenced to total confinement] [in the future]. And means and. Where previously there was one requirement (conviction after January 1, 1999), now there are two (conviction and total confinement), both of which must occur after January 1, 1999. The defendant was not convicted of a qualifying crime after January 1, 1999. It follows that he is not eligible for civil commitment under the Act. IV. The majority opinion says that by adding new language to the statute, the Legislature changed the meaning of the already existing language. That is not correct. The majority acknowledges that the eligible group was originally all persons convicted of a sexually violent offense in the future, i.e., after January 1, 1999. The majority says that because the Legislature inserted new language before in the future, it follows that the Legislature intended in the future to apply only to the new phrase, not the old phrase. Respectfully, this is contrary to common understanding. The Jimmy Ryce Act already had an accepted meaning: that it applied to persons convicted of a qualifying offense after January 1, 1999. Under ordinary drafting practices, if the Legislature had wanted to change that part of the statute, it would have done so expressly and not by mere implication. Provisions of the original act or section which are repeated in the body of the amendment, either in the same or equivalent words, are considered a continuation of the original law. 1A Norman J. Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction § 22:33, at 392 (2002).[n. 9] [N. 9.] The amendment at issue here stated: 394.925 916.45 Applicability of act.This part applies Sections 916.31-916.49 apply to all persons currently in custody who have been convicted of a sexually violent offense, as that term is defined in s. 394.912(9) s.916.32(8), as well as to all persons convicted of a sexually violent offense and sentenced to total confinement in the future. Ch. 99-222, § 20, Laws of Fla. V The majority opinion relies on the so-called doctrine (or rule) of the last antecedent, which is an aid to statutory construction. Majority opinion at 483. The majority opinion relies on that doctrine for the proposition that the phrase in the future in this case modifies only the phrase sentenced to total confinement. The majority opinion is incorrect on that point. A. Professor LeClercq has explained the doctrine of the last antecedent as follows: By the late 1880s, Jabez Sutherland, who wrote Sutherland on Statutory Construction, had grappled with enough legal ambiguity after investigating complicated and litigated statutes that he invented a grammar/punctuation rule in hopes of resolving future statutory problems: Referential and qualifying phrases, where no contrary intention appears, refer solely to the last antecedent. The last antecedent is the last word, phrase, or clause that can be made an antecedent without impairing the meaning of the sentence. This proviso usually is construed to apply to the provision or clause immediately preceding it. The rule is another aid to discovery of intent or meaning and is not inflexible and uniformly binding. Where the sense of the entire act requires that a qualifying word or phrase apply to several preceding or even succeeding sections, the word or phrase will not be restricted to its immediate antecedent. Evidence that a qualifying phrase is supposed to apply to all antecedents instead of only to the immediately preceding one may be found in the fact that it is separated from the antecedents by a comma. Terri LeClercq, Doctrine of the Last Antecedent: The Mystifying Morass of Ambiguous Modifiers, 2 Legal Writing 81, 86-87 (1996) (footnote omitted; emphasis added) (quoting 1891 version of Sutherland on Statutory Construction).[n. 10] [N. 10.] The current version of Sutherland's doctrine appears in 2A Norman J. Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction § 47:33, at 369-73 (6th ed.2000). Professor LeClercq goes on to say that the Doctrine of the Last Antecedent is problematic: it contradicts other linguistic principles; it contradicts the historical use of the comma; and the doctrine, itself poorly drafted, does not provide a concrete conclusion to the problem of ambiguous modifiers. LeClercq, supra, at 89. Thus, rather than becoming `one more aid' in interpretation as Sutherland hoped, the Doctrine of the Last Antecedent has, in its hundred-plus year history, created as much confusion and disagreement as the ambiguous modifier its drafter set out to clarify. Id. [n. 11] [N.11.] Further: Unfortunately for those who need to depend on it, the Doctrine of the Last Antecedent itself calls for interpretation because Sutherland begins with what seems the fall-back rule of statutory interpretation and concludes with his specific point. He begins with a qualifier, that interpreters should use the Doctrine of the Last Antecedent where no contrary intention appears. Appears where? Within the phrase or within the document as a whole? In the notes of a committee that wrote the original rule? If the language offers no contrary intention, then the meaning is already plain. If the contrary intent shows up within the sentence itself, then there is no need for the rule. And legislative intent or the drafter's intent is usually in question to begin with, so that search rarely clarifies the sentence in question. But Sutherland's fifth sentence where the sense of the entire act requires ... implies that the reader has already investigated the phrase within the context of the entire act. Thus the Sutherland rule is a jumble. He probably meant to emphasize intent, and the sense of the act as a whole, over the announced doctrine. Id. at 92-93. B. The doctrine of the last antecedent has been described by the United States Supreme Court as a rule of statutory construction which will be applied when it makes sense to do so, and will be ignored when it does not. Relying on Sutherland, the Court has said the rule of the last antecedent is one in which a limiting clause or phrase ... should ordinarily be read as modifying only the noun or phrase that it immediately follows.... See 2A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 47.33, p. 369 (6th rev. ed. 2000) (Referential and qualifying words and phrases, where no contrary intention appears, refer solely to the last antecedent). While this rule is not an absolute and can assuredly be overcome by other indicia of meaning, we have said that construing a statute in accord with the rule is quite sensible as a matter of grammar. Barnhart v. Thomas, 540 U.S. 20, 26, 124 S.Ct. 376, 157 L.Ed.2d 333 (2003) (citation omitted; emphasis added). Compare id. (applying rule of the last antecedent) with Nobelman v. American Savings Bank, 508 U.S. 324, 330, 113 S.Ct. 2106, 124 L.Ed.2d 228 (1993) (declining to apply rule of last antecedent and instead adopting an interpretation which is the more reasonable one[.]), and compare Miller v. Kase, 789 So.2d 1095, 1098-99 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001) (declining to apply doctrine of last antecedent) with Mallard v. Tele-Trip Co., 398 So.2d 969, 972 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981) (applying doctrine of last antecedent). In this case the most relevant pronouncement is one by Justice Brandeis on behalf of the Supreme Court many years ago. When 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. Porto Rico Ry. v. Mor, 253 U.S. 345, 348, 40 S.Ct. 516, 64 L.Ed. 944 (1920). The rule of the last antecedent has no application here. VI. The majority opinion relies on a statement contained in In Re: Amendments to Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.172, 911 So.2d 763, 765 (Fla.2005). This amendment adds a warning to be given in accepting pleas of guilty or nolo contendere, to warn the defendant regarding possible civil commitment consequences under the Jimmy Ryce Act. The majority reasons that this amendment to a procedural rule means that the Florida Supreme Court has already decided the substantive issue now before us. The majority opinion's reasoning is incorrect. The law is well established that in adopting procedural rules, the court does not adjudicate substantive rights. See Ramos v. State, 505 So.2d 418, 421 (Fla.1987). The concurring opinion takes the position that we are compelled to adopt the reading contained in the majority opinion, failing which the statute would be unconstitutional. The parties have made no such argument in this case. The State has defended the trial court's ruling on the basis of grammatical rules, not constitutional rules. If the constitutional issue were properly before us (which it is not), the Legislature is allowed to, and has a rational basis for, narrowing the group eligible for civil commitment if it wishes to do so. The Legislature from the outset intended commitment under the Act to be targeted for a small group of dangerous individuals. See § 394.910, Fla. Stat. (2004). It is a legislative prerogative to decide how to define the group of eligible individuals. VII. In conclusion, the defendant is not eligible for commitment under the Act, and we should grant the petition for writ of prohibition. I concur in certifying the question of great public importance.[n. 12] [N. 12.] One other aspect of the majority interpretation bears mention. The Act required review of all offenders who had a qualifying conviction and were in custody on January 1, 1999. In some instances the State reviewed an offender and decided not to file civil commitment proceedings. Such offenders were released upon expiration of the criminal sentence. If any such offender were reincarcerated on a nonsexual offense after January 1, 1999, then under the majority's analysis, that offender must once again be evaluated under the Act for possible civil commitmenteven though that offender has already been rejected as a candidate for civil commitment. It is illogical to suppose that the Legislature intended this result. Ward v. State, 936 So.2d 1143, 1152-57 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006) (Cope, C.J., concurring in part, dissenting in part).