Michell v. State Ex Rel. Callahan

154 So. 2d 701
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMay 24, 1963
Docket3465
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 154 So. 2d 701 (Michell v. State Ex Rel. Callahan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Michell v. State Ex Rel. Callahan, 154 So. 2d 701 (Fla. Ct. App. 1963).

Opinion

154 So.2d 701 (1963)

Allen B. MICHELL, Sheriff of Broward County, Florida, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida ex rel. John Thomas CALLAHAN, Jr., a/k/a Leonard John Hemmerling, Appellee.

No. 3465.

District Court of Appeal of Florida. Second District.

May 24, 1963.
Rehearing Denied July 8, 1963.

*702 Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Herbert P. Benn, Asst. Atty. Gen., Miami, Phillip D. O'Connell, State Atty., and Jose A. Gonzalez, Jr., Asst. State Atty., Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.

Ross E. Mowry, Public Defender, Fort Lauderdale, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

In habeas corpus proceedings in the court below, the appellant, Allen B. Michell, Sheriff of Broward County, was the respondent; the appellee, John Thomas Callahan, Jr. (also known as Leonard John Hemmerling), was the petitioner. The lower court issued the Writ of Habeas Corpus and entered an Order favorable to the petitioner. The respondent appeals.

On April 6, 1962, The County Solicitor of Broward County filed an Information against the petitioner, charging him with the crime of robbery. On April 10, 1962, the petitioner was arraigned before the Court of Record in and for Broward County. He was represented by the County Public Defender. A plea of guilty was entered, and thereupon the Court of Record adjudged the petitioner guilty of the crime of robbery as charged in the Information. On April 19, 1962, the said court sentenced the petitioner to serve one year in the county jail.

Subsequently, on or about May 12, 1962, it came to the attention of the Judge of the Court of Record that the petitioner was a minor and that the provisions of § 932.38, Florida Statutes, F.S.A. had not been complied with. On May 24, 1962, the said Judge, on the Court's own motion, entered an order vacating and setting aside the prior plea of guilty, the adjudication of guilt, and the sentence theretofore imposed upon the petitioner. The County Solicitor filed an amended Information, again charging the petitioner with the crime of robbery. Following the statutory notice to his parents as required by law, the petitioner was again arraigned. He entered a plea of nolo contendere to the charge. At this arraignment, the petitioner was again represented by the County Public Defender. On May 24, 1962, the petitioner was adjudged guilty of the crime of robbery and sentenced to be confined at hard labor in the state prison for a term of seven years.

On June 5, 1962, the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus was filed in the Circuit Court of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in and for Broward County. The petitioner challenged the legality of his detention under the seven-year sentence. Pursuant to the said Petition, a Writ of Habeas Corpus was issued, commanding the respondent Sheriff to bring the petitioner before the Circuit Court for an inquiry into the cause of the petitioner's detention. Apparently, the petitioner at that time had not yet been transferred to the state prison. The respondent Sheriff moved to quash the Writ on the ground, inter alia, that petitioner's remedy was by appeal, and filed his Return to the Writ of Habeas Corpus. The Circuit Court then entered the Order appealed from. In the said Order, the motion to quash the Writ was denied; the petitioner was remanded to the custody of the respondent; the trial court was directed to vacate and set aside the judgment and sentence of May 24, 1962, and impose a sentence no longer in time than the sentence imposed on April 19, 1962; and upon resentencing the petitioner, the trial court was directed to give the petitioner credit for the time he had served under the judgment and sentence rendered void by the Circuit Court.

We decline to discuss the question of the procedural propriety of the Writ of Habeas Corpus under these circumstances, since the appeal time has now expired and the one-year sentence has been executed. But cf. McGuire v. Cochran, Fla. 1961, 135 So.2d 226.

The ultimate question raised by this appeal may be stated as follows: Was it proper for the trial court, after vacating upon its own motion the prior judgment *703 and sentence for failure of compliance with § 932.38, Florida Statutes, F.S.A. to then impose a sentence greater than that imposed in the original proceedings, following a second adjudication of guilt in the subsequent proceedings wherein the requirements of § 932.38 were met?

The original proceedings wherein the petitioner was sentenced to one year in the county jail[1] were void for failure of compliance with § 932.38, Florida Statutes, F.S.A. See Vellucci v. Cochran, Fla. 1962, 138 So.2d 510; Willis v. Cochran, Fla. 1961, 131 So.2d 728; Giles v. Cochran, Fla. 1961, 129 So.2d 426; Williams v. Cochran, Fla. 1961, 126 So.2d 887; McGuirk v. Cochran, Fla. 1961, 126 So.2d 555; Thompson v. Cochran, Fla. 1961, 126 So.2d 564; Raggen v. Cochran, Fla. 1961, 126 So.2d 145; and Kinard v. Cochran, Fla. 1959, 113 So.2d 843. In all of the cited cases (habeas corpus proceedings in the Supreme Court of Florida), the petitioners had commenced upon the execution of their sentences. In all of the cases, the petitioners were released from detention under the judgments and sentences rendered void, but the Supreme Court in each instance directed that the prisoners be retained in custody pending reprosecution of the charges.

Upon discovering that the petitioner here was a minor at the time of the initial proceedings (and therefore protected by the "notice to parents" requirements of § 932.38, supra), it was the duty of the trial judge to vacate and set aside the prior judgment and sentence. After the filing of the amended Information and after the petitioner's parents were properly notified, it would be proper for the trial judge to accept the plea of nolo contendere, adjudicate the petitioner guilty, and impose sentence. There was no double jeopardy here, for there had been no initial jeopardy, the prior proceedings being null and void. As was stated by the Supreme Court in Tilghman v. Mayo, Fla. 1955, 82 So.2d 136, at 137:

"The very fact that the former judgment was void is the reason that it cannot effectively be pleaded as a basis of former jeopardy. In general, to constitute a proper basis for the claim of former jeopardy a proceeding must be valid, and if the proceedings are `lacking in any fundamental prerequisite which renders the judgment void' they will not constitute a proper predicate for such a claim * * * [citing numerous cases]."

We cannot ascertain from the record why the trial court imposed a seven-year sentence upon the petitioner, after having imposed only a one-year sentence in the void proceedings. But this Court is not at liberty to pass upon that matter. In Stanford v. State, Fla. 1959, 110 So.2d 1, n. 4 at 2, the Supreme Court said:

"In an unbroken line of decisions since Brown v. State, 152 Fla. 853, 13 So.2d 458, we have adhered to the principle that if a trial judge imposes a sentence that is within the limits defined by statute, the only relief is before the parole authorities."

See also Chavigny v. State, Fla.App. 1959, 112 So.2d 910; Le Prell v. State, Fla.App. 1960, 124 So.2d 18; Alspaugh v. State, Fla. App. 1961, 133 So.2d 587. Under the provisions of § 813.011, Florida Statutes, a person convicted of robbery is subject to imprisonment "for life or for any lesser term of years, at the discretion of the court."

Our attention has been directed to the Annotation in 168 A.L.R.

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154 So. 2d 701, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/michell-v-state-ex-rel-callahan-fladistctapp-1963.