Court Opinion

ID: 9903415
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-27 15:36:03.138327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:14.925884
License: Public Domain

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                     FIFTH DISTRICT

                                  NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO
                                  FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND
                                  DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

DANIEL FETZER,

           Petitioner,

v.                                    Case No. 5D23-379
                                      LT Case No. 16-2010-CA-3850-AX

STATE OF FLORIDA AND FLORIDA
DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND
FAMILIES,

           Respondents.

________________________________/

Opinion filed March 10, 2023

Petition for Writ of Prohibition,
Robert M. Foster, Respondent Judge.

Daniel Fetzer, Arcadia, pro se.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and
David Welch, Assistant Attorney
General, Tallahassee, for
Respondent, State of Florida.

SaVannah J. Reading, Assistant
General Counsel, of Department of
Children and Families, Tallahassee, for
Respondent, Department of Children
and Families.
LAMBERT, C.J.

      Daniel Fetzer was convicted in 1985 in the Commonwealth of

Massachusetts of assault with intent to commit rape. Following his release

from prison, Fetzer eventually made his way to Florida, where, in 1997, he

was convicted and imprisoned on charges of child abuse, child neglect, and

escape.

      On March 23, 2010, while Fetzer was still in the lawful custody of the

Florida Department of Corrections, the State filed a petition under sections

394.910–394.931, Florida Statutes (2009), commonly referred to as the

Jimmy Ryce Act, to have Fetzer found to be a sexually violent predator and

to commit him to the custody of the Department of Children and Families for

long-term control, care, and treatment.1 The same day, the circuit court

issued an ex parte order finding that probable cause exists to believe that

Fetzer is a sexually violent predator and directing that he be held in an

appropriate secure facility pursuant to section 394.915, Florida Statutes.2

Fetzer later executed a written waiver of his right to have his trial held within

      Fetzer was scheduled to be released from custody four days later on
      1

March 27, 2010.
      2
       The court held an evidentiary hearing the following month where it
found probable cause that Fetzer should be committed as a sexually violent
predator.

                                       2
thirty days of the State’s filing of the petition. See § 394.916(1), Fla. Stat.

(2009) (providing that “[w]ithin 30 days after the determination of probable

cause, the court shall conduct a trial to determine whether the person is a

sexually violent predator”). Trial has not yet occurred.3

      In 2022, Fetzer filed a “Second Amended Emergency Motion to

Dismiss Release and Discharge from Unlawful Civil Custody.” Fetzer argued

in his motion that the State’s 2010 petition to civilly commit him as a sexually

violent predator was barred under Florida’s statute of limitations codified at

section 95.11, Florida Statutes (2009), because it sought to enforce the

Massachusetts judgment entered against him almost twenty-five years

earlier. The State moved to strike Fetzer’s motion, responding that Fetzer

was relitigating the same motion that he had unsuccessfully filed in 2020.

The circuit court denied Fetzer’s motion.

      Before this court is Fetzer’s petition requesting that we issue a writ of

prohibition to prevent the circuit court from hearing and considering the

State’s petition to involuntarily commit him as a sexually violent predator. 4

Fetzer primarily argues that whether the twenty-year, five-year, or four-year

      3
        Fetzer remains housed at the State of Florida Civil Commitment
Center in Arcadia.
      4
       The order entered by the circuit court is not an appealable nonfinal
order under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130.

                                       3
statute of limitations period under sections 95.11(1), (2), or (3)(p) applies, the

time for the State to have brought an action on his 1985 Massachusetts

judgment expired long before it filed its petition in this case on March 23,

2010. For the following reasons, we deny the petition.

ANALYSIS—

      Prohibition is considered an extraordinary remedy that is used to

prevent a lower court from acting without jurisdiction or in excess of its

jurisdiction. English v. McCrary, 348 So. 2d 293, 296 (Fla. 1977); Taylor v.

State, 65 So. 3d 531, 533 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011) (citing Peltz v. Dist. Ct. of

Appeal, Third Dist., 605 So. 2d 865, 866 (Fla. 1992)). The writ is intended

to be “narrow in scope, to be employed with great caution and utilized only

in emergencies,” English, 348 So. 2d at 296, and “where there is no other

‘appropriate and adequate legal remedy.’” Sutton v. State, 975 So. 2d 1073,

1076 (Fla. 2008) (quoting S. Records & Tape Serv. v. Goldman, 502 So. 2d

413, 414 (Fla. 1986)).

      Fetzer does not dispute that he was in the lawful custody of the

Department of Corrections at the time that the State initiated the instant civil

commitment proceedings.         Resultingly, under Florida Supreme Court

precedent, the circuit court here has jurisdiction to adjudicate the State’s

commitment petition. See Larimore v. State, 2 So. 3d 101, 117 (Fla. 2008)

                                        4
(holding that “an individual must be in lawful custody when the State takes

steps to initiate commitment proceedings pursuant to the Jimmy Ryce Act in

order for the circuit court to have jurisdiction to adjudicate the commitment

petition”). Fetzer has not disputed that he was also in the lawful custody of

the Department of Corrections on January 1, 1999, when the Jimmy Ryce

Act came into effect. 5 See State v. Atkinson, 831 So. 3d 172, 174 (Fla. 2002)

(holding that the Jimmy “Ryce Act is limited to persons who were in lawful

custody on its effective date”).

      Further, though Fetzer long ago served his sentence for the assault

with intent to commit rape committed in Massachusetts, the circuit court is

not precluded from exercising jurisdiction because the Jimmy Ryce Act does

not require that the petition for involuntary commitment be filed while the sex

offender is in custody for the enumerated sex offense. See Ward v. State,

986 So. 2d 479, 480, 483–84 (Fla. 2008) (holding that a petitioner who was

convicted of rape in 1976 and released from prison in 1993 was nevertheless

subject to Jimmy Ryce Act involuntary civil commitment proceedings initiated

by the State in 2005 as the petitioner was in lawful custody at the time for

the crimes of burglary of an unoccupied conveyance and possession of

burglary tools); Hale v. State, 891 So. 2d 517, 522 (Fla. 2004) (holding that

      5
          See ch. 98-64, § 24, Laws of Fla.

                                       5
the Jimmy Ryce “Act applies to all persons who are currently incarcerated

and who at some point in the past have been convicted of a sexually violent

offense”—the Act does not require that the current incarceration be for a

sexually violent offense).

      As previously indicated, Fetzer’s challenge focuses on the trial court’s

denial of his motion to dismiss based on a statute of limitations defense.

While we question whether Florida’s statute of limitations even applies to a

Jimmy Ryce proceeding initiated when, as here, a defendant is in lawful

custody, see Anderson v. State, 93 So. 3d 1201, 1209 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012)

(Padovano, J., concurring) (“It is doubtful that the statute of limitations can

be applied at all in a Jimmy Ryce Act proceeding, as there is no point at

which the action can be said to have accrued.”), prohibition is not available

to review an allegedly erroneous order from the trial court rejecting an

affirmative defense in a civil proceeding based on the statute of limitations.

See Allan & Conrad, Inc. v. Univ. of Cent. Fla., 961 So. 2d 1083, 1086 (Fla.

5th DCA 2007); Panagakos v. Laufer, 779 So. 2d 296, 297 (Fla. 2d DCA

1999). Stated somewhat differently, prohibition “was never designed to

prevent the erroneous exercise of an existing jurisdiction, or to be used as a

substitute for a writ of error or appeal.” State ex rel. Cacciatore v. Drumright,

156 So. 721, 723 (Fla. 1934).

                                       6
      Accordingly, based on the sparse record before us, the very limited

ground for relief asserted in the petition, and the extremely narrow scope of

a writ of prohibition, we deny Fetzer’s petition because, simply stated, the

circuit court is not acting without or in excess of its jurisdiction. In doing so,

we take no position as to whether Fetzer has other avenues available to him

either to obtain release or to otherwise bring this now-almost-thirteen-year

civil commitment proceeding to trial because the record before us is not

sufficiently developed to show that he is entitled to such relief. Cf. Morel v.

Wilkins, 84 So. 3d 226, 247–48 (Fla. 2012) (holding that an eight-year delay

prior to trial on the State’s involuntary civil commitment petition did not violate

the defendant’s right to due process where the defendant waived his right to

trial within thirty days, never reasserted his right to trial, and the delays in the

proceeding were attributable to the defendant).6

      PETITION FOR WRIT OF PROHIBITION DENIED.

MAKAR and SOUD, JJ., concur.

      6
        The State has argued here, with some support in the record, that the
lengthy delay in this case is attributable to Fetzer’s own actions in, among
other things, specifically and repeatedly refusing to participate in numerous
scheduled court proceedings.

                                         7