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disagreeing with "majority's reliance upon tidbits of legislative history to discern `legislative intent'" and stating that the "law means what its text most appropriately conveys"
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Case No. 96-458
Opinion filed February 28, 1997.
An appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County. F.E. Steinmeyer, III, Judge.
Glen R. Deason, pro se, appellant.
William L. Camper, General Counsel, and Bradley R. Bischoff, Assistant General Counsel, Florida Parole Commission, Tallahassee, for appellee.
Glen Deason appeals an order of the circuit court which denied his petition for writ of mandamus. We affirm.
Deason was originally convicted in 1990 of two counts of grand theft of a motor vehicle and sentenced as a habitual offender to concurrent terms of three and one-half years imprisonment. He was released from the Department of Corrections on February 1, 1993, and placed on conditional release pursuant to section 947.1405, Florida Statutes (1989). He was again arrested on April 12, 1993, and his conditional release was revoked. His argument in the trial court concerned proper interpretation of section 947.1405(2), Florida Statutes (1989):
Any inmate who is convicted of a crime committed on or after October 1, 1988, which crime is contained in category 1, category 2, category 3, or category 4 of Rule 3.701 and Rule 3.988, Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure, and who has served at least one prior felony commitment at a state or federal correctional institution or is sentenced as a habitual or violent habitual offender pursuant to s. 775.084 shall, upon reaching the tentative release date or provisional release date, whichever is earlier, as established by the Department of Corrections, be released under supervision subject to specified terms and conditions. . . .
Petitioner argued that the proper criteria for the conditional release program were that the inmate must have been convicted of a category 1, 2, 3, or 4 crime and either have been subject to a habitualized sentence or have served a prior felony commitment. Since appellant's crime was not enumerated in category 1, 2, 3, or 4 of the guidelines, he contended that he was ineligible for the program. The commission argued, and the trial judge agreed, that this statute, properly read, provides for habitualized sentencing as a separate independent criterion for conditional release.
We agree with this reading of the statute. While there may be some ambiguity in its language, accepted aids to statutory construction support the commission's reading. For example, a Senate Staff Analysis for CS/HBS 1574, 1422, 1430, 1438, 1439, and 1567 which passed as chapter 88-122 and enacted section 947.1405 provided:
Section 16 [later section 19] creates section 947.1405, F.S., the "Conditional Release Program Act" to provide for post-release supervision for persons sentenced under Category 1, 2, 3, or 4 of Sentencing Guidelines or as habitual offenders.
This document, dated two days prior to the vote by both Senate and House, provides significant evidence of legislative intent. See Auto-Owners Insurance v. Prough, 463 So.2d 1184, 1186 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985); Florida Insurance Guaranty Association, Inc. v. State, Department of Insurance, 400 So.2d 813, 817 n.5 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981).
The House Staff Analysis reaches the same conclusion but is of lesser value in determining legislative intent because it is dated six days after passage of the bill. See Rhodes Seereiter,The Search for Intent: Aids to Statutory Construction in Florida — An Update, 13 F.S.U. L. Rev. 485, 509 (1985).
Additional support for our conclusion is drawn from an examination of the provisions of Florida law relating to the sentencing of habitual offenders. Although section 775.084(4)(e), Florida Statutes (1989) stated that "[t]he provisions of chapter 947 shall not be applied to [habitual offenders]", this court explained in Lincoln v. State, 643 So.2d 668 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) that this language was an anachronism and contrary to legislative intent in enacting the conditional release program. The 1993 Legislature expressly clarified the issue when it enacted chapter 93-406, section 2, amending section 775.084(4)(e) to provide that "[t]he provisions of s. 947.1405 shall apply to persons sentenced as habitual offenders . . . ." See Lincoln, 643 So.2d at 672.
Also supporting the commission's interpretation of the statute is a significant change made to section 947.1405(2) by the 1995 Legislature. It now reads:
Ch. 95-264, § 5, Laws of Fla.
(2) Any inmate who:
(a) Is convicted of a crime committed on or after October 1, 1988, and before January 1, 1994, and any inmate who is convicted of a crime committed on or after January 1, 1994, which crime is or was contained in category 1, category 2, category 3, or category 4 of Rule 3.701 and Rule 3.988, Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure (1993), and who has served at least one prior felony commitment at a state or federal correctional institution;
(b) Is sentenced as a habitual or violent habitual offender pursuant to s. 775.084; or
(c) Is found to be a sexual predator under s. 775.23, shall, upon reaching the tentative release date or provisional release date, whichever is earlier, as established by the Department of Corrections, be released under supervision subject to specified terms and conditions, . . .
We conclude that this amendment was likely intended to clarify, rather than change, the law. See Keyes Investors Series 20, Ltd. v. Department of State, 487 So.2d 59, 60 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986).
In light of the above, we hold that a person subject to habitualized sentencing in 1990, as now, is eligible for conditional release under the terms of section 947.1405(2), regardless of the status of the conviction itself under the sentencing guidelines. Denial of Deason's petition for writ of mandamus is therefore affirmed.
However, we certify the following to be a question of great public importance:
DOES AN INMATE WHO HAS BEEN SENTENCED AS A HABITUAL OR VIOLENT HABITUAL OFFENDER BUT WHO IS NOT CONVICTED OF A CATEGORY 1, CATEGORY 2, CATEGORY 3 OR CATEGORY 4 CRIME QUALIFY FOR CONDITIONAL RELEASE PURSUANT TO SECTION 947.1405(2), FLORIDA STATUTES (1989)?
AFFIRMED.
MICKLE and LAWRENCE, JJ., CONCUR; ALLEN, J., DISSENTS WITH WRITTEN OPINION
I find myself in agreement with the construction of the statute urged by the appellant. Plainly read, the statutory language means that an inmate will be subject to conditional release when he has both (a) been convicted of a category 1, 2, 3, or 4 crime and (b) been given a habitual felony offender sentence or served a prior felony commitment.
I disagree with the majority's reliance upon tidbits of legislative history to discern "legislative intent." In my view, the law means what its text most appropriately conveys, and we should content ourselves with reading it rather than psychoanalyzing those who enacted it. See United States v. Public Utl. Comm'n Cal., 345 U.S. 295, 319 (1953), (Jackson, J., concurring); Dept. Of Revenue v. John's Island Club, Inc., 21 Fla. L. Weekly D750, D751 (Fla. 1st DCA March 27, 1996), (Allen, J., concurring in result). Although I find use of legislative history troubling generally, it is particularly troubling when used out of proper context.
The majority relies upon a Senate Staff Analysis dated June 1, 1988, two days prior to the favorable vote by the Senate and House on consolidated CS/HB 1574, 1422, 1430, 1438, 1439, and 1567, which passed as chapter 88-122 and, among other things, enacted section 947.1405. Although it is true that the portion of the analysis quoted by the majority supports the construction now placed upon section 947.1405 by the majority, the majority neglects to point out that the staff analysis did not relate to the consolidated bill as finally enacted. The staff analysis related to the first engrossed version of the consolidated bill as passed by the House on May 12, 1988. But when the Senate took up the first engrossed bill on June 3, 1988, the Senate amended the bill by striking everything after the enacting clause and inserting an entirely new bill. As so amended, the bill was passed by the Senate and House on that date.
Section 16 of the first engrossed version of the consolidated bill and Section 19 of the consolidated bill as finally enacted both proposed to create a new section 947.1405, Florida Statutes. They were the same, except for one very important difference. The first engrossed version of the bill included a comma following the term "correctional institution," but the comma was omitted in the bill as finally enacted. With a comma inserted at that point in the text, the construction suggested by the staff analysis and adopted by the majority is more plausible. But without the comma, that construction seems quite strained.
Chapter 88-122, section 10, Laws of Florida, which subsequently appeared as section 944.291, Florida Statutes (1989), also set forth requisites for placement of prisoners into the conditional release program. The only significant distinction between the section 10 qualifications and the section 19 qualifications is that section 10 contains a comma after the term "correctional institution." But section 944.291 specifically defers to the provisions of chapter 947, Florida Statutes. It is worthy of note that section 944.291 was not amended even when the requisites for conditional release placement were substantially changed pursuant to the 1995 amendment of section 947.1405, Florida Statutes.
One who took guidance from legislative history might ask why the legislature chose to omit the comma. The answer to this question seems quite obvious. There could have been but one reasonable purpose for the decision to so alter the punctuation of the statutory language. That purpose could only have been to dissuade readers of the statutory text from the very construction now adopted by the majority.
The majority also relies upon Lincoln v. State, 643 So.2d 668 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994). But Lincoln stands for the proposition that habitual offenders as a class are not exempted from the conditional release provisions of section 947.1405. It does not address the issue now before us.
Finally, the majority relies upon a 1995 amendment of section 947.1405(2) to justify its construction of the 1988 statute. The majority concludes that the amendment "was likely intended to clarify, rather than change, the law." But the majority does not tell us how this conclusion is reached. Certainly nothing in the text of the 1995 statute suggests that the amendment had this purpose. In fact, a plain reading of the entirety of section 947.1405(2), Florida Statutes (1995), together with the full text of section 947.1405(2) as it existed prior to the 1995 amendment, reveals that the 1995 amendment made substantial changes to the law as it existed under the prior statute. I therefore conclude that the legislature did intend to change the law by its 1995 amendment of the statute.
Based upon my reading of the statutory language, I respectfully dissent.