Opinion ID: 1138281
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Combs

Text: In Combs v. State, 436 So.2d 93 (Fla. 1983), this Court held that the district court had applied too narrow a certiorari standard of review. Melvin Combs was convicted in county court of driving while intoxicated. At trial, Combs claimed that certain statements he made at the accident scene were privileged. The county court rejected the claim, and, on appeal after conviction, the circuit court affirmed. In denying certiorari, the district court stated that its review was limited to: violations which effectively deny appellate review such as a circuit judge rendering a decision without allowing briefs to be filed and considered, a circuit judge making a decision without a record to support the decision or the circuit court dismissing an appeal improperly. Combs v. State, 420 So.2d 316, 317 (Fla. 5th DCA 1982) (citation omitted). In rejecting this scope of review as too narrow, we acknowledged that application of the phrase departure from the essential requirements of law had generated much confusion. Combs, 436 So.2d at 95. We attributed the confusion mainly to the difficulty encountered by the courts in maintaining the distinction between certiorari review and the standard used in reviewing legal error on appeal. [9] In an effort to clarify the certiorari standard, we elaborated on the meaning and boundaries of departure from the essential requirements of law: [T]he phrase departure from the essential requirements of law should not be narrowly construed so as to apply only to violations which effectively deny appellate review or which pertain to the regularity of procedure. In granting writs of common-law certiorari, the district courts of appeal should not be as concerned with the mere existence of legal error as much as with the seriousness of the error. Since it is impossible to list all possible legal errors serious enough to constitute a departure from the essential requirements of law, the district courts must be allowed a large degree of discretion so that they may judge each case individually. The district courts should exercise this discretion only when there has been a violation of clearly established principle of law resulting in a miscarriage of justice. It is this discretion which is the essential distinction between review by appeal and review by common-law certiorari. A district court may refuse to grant a petition for common-law certiorari even though there may have been a departure from the essential requirements of law. The district courts should use this discretion cautiously so as to avert the possibility of common-law certiorari being used as a vehicle to obtain a second appeal. Combs, 436 So.2d at 95-96 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). We concluded in Combs that the district court reached a correct result, albeit for the wrong reason, in denying certiorari, despite its use of an erroneous standard of review. Id. at 96. [10]