R.J.W. v. State

910 So. 2d 357, 2005 Fla. App. LEXIS 14536, 2005 WL 2242698
District Court of Appeal of Florida·Decided September 16, 2005·No. No. 2D04-4003·Published

Opinion

CASANUEVA, Judge.

R. J.W. appeals his delinquency adjudication for committing the offense of providing a false identity to a law enforcement officer contrary to section 901.36(1), Florida Statutes (2003). After the trial court granted R.J.W.’s motion for judgment of dismissal — the equivalent of a motion for judgment of acquittal in adult proceed[358]*358ings — made at the conclusion of the State’s case, the court allowed the State to reopen its case and submit further evidence. The court ultimately relied on that evidence to find that R.J.W. had committed the charged offense. The trial court’s procedure, R.J.W. contends, violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the federal and state constitutions. We agree. Because the trial court had effectively acquitted the defendant of this charge, we reverse.

The Double Jeopardy Clause was adopted as protection against multiple prosecutions as well as the threat of them. United States v. Wilson, 420 U.S. 332, 342, 95 S.Ct. 1013, 43 L.Ed.2d 232 (1975). “The Clause ... guarantees that the State shall not be permitted to make repeated attempts to convict the accused.” United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U.S. 564, 569, 97 S.Ct. 1349, 51 L.Ed.2d 642 (1977). To safeguard and implement that guarantee, a fundamental rule of double jeopardy jurisprudence has emerged: a verdict of acquittal cannot be reviewed without putting a defendant twice in jeopardy. United States v. Ball, 163 U.S. 662, 671, 16 S.Ct. 1192, 41 L.Ed. 300 (1896).

The Supreme Court discussed the scope of this constitutional protection in Martin Linen Supply, 430 U.S. 564, 97 S.Ct. 1349, 51 L.Ed.2d 642, a prosecution for criminal contempt. At the bench trial, the court granted Martin Linen Supply’s motion made pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(c), which authorizes a motion for a judgment of acquittal to be made after a verdict of guilty is returned or after the jury is discharged without having returned a verdict. The Court observed that the district court had made it clear that it had “evaluated the Government’s evidence and determined that it was legally insufficient to sustain a conviction”; the district court called it the weakest contempt case the court had ever seen. Id. at 572, 97 S.Ct. 1349. In the face of the Government’s argument that only a jury verdict of acquittal would trigger double jeopardy protection, the Supreme Court held that the district court’s grant of the rule 29(c) motion and concomitant judgment was an acquittal “in substance as well as form.” Id. at 572, 97 S.Ct. 1349. The Court held that the trial court’s judgment triggered the double jeopardy bar against a second trial because the judgment of acquittal plainly concluded the pending prosecution. Id. at 576, 97 S.Ct. 1349.

Recently, the Supreme Court reviewed a claim similar to the one made by R.J.W. here. In Smith v. Massachusetts, — U.S. -, 125 S.Ct. 1129, 160 L.Ed.2d 914 (2005), in which the defendant was convicted of possessing a firearm that had a barrel less than sixteen inches, the Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause forbade the trial judge from reconsidering the grant of a motion for judgment of acquittal — in Massachusetts parlance, a motion for a required finding of not guilty. At the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, the defendant, pursuant to Massachusetts Rule of Criminal Procedure 25(a), moved for a finding of not guilty on the possession of firearm charge. In granting the motion,1 the trial court explained that there “was ‘not a scintilla of evidence’ that petitioner had possessed a weapon with a barrel length of less than 16 inches.” Id. at 1132-33. After acquitting the defendant on this charge, the trial continued on the others he faced. At the conclusion of the defense case, the prosecutor, who had made no motion to reopen the state’s case, moved to submit the firearm possession count to the jury, citing case precedent. [359]*359The trial court reversed itself and submitted the firearm possession count to the jury, who then convicted the defendant of this count.

Writing for the Court, Justice Scalia observed that “the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits reexamination of a court-decreed acquittal to the same extent it prohibits reexamination of an acquittal by jury verdict.” Id. at 1133. Thus, where “the prosecution has not yet obtained a conviction, further proceedings to secure one are impermissible: ‘[Subjecting the defendant to postacquittal factfinding proceedings going to guilt or innocence violates the Double Jeopardy Clause.’ ” Id. at 1134 (quoting Smalis v. Pa., 476 U.S. 140, 145, 106 S.Ct. 1745, 90 L.Ed.2d 116 (1986)).

The first issue the Court analyzed was whether the trial court’s ruling on the rule 25(a) motion constituted a judgment of acquittal. Because the rule requires a trial judge to enter a finding of not guilty where the evidence is legally insufficient to sustain a conviction, the Court concluded that such an order comprised an actual resolution, correct or not, of some or all of factual elements and was, therefore, by definition, an acquittal. Granting a motion and entering an order pursuant to the rule constituted a “substantive determination that the prosecution has failed to carry its burden.” Smith, 125 S.Ct. at 1134.

The Court next considered the more difficult question of whether the Double Jeopardy Clause permitted the trial court to reconsider that ruling after the defendant and his codefendant had rested their eases. The Court concluded:

The Double Jeopardy Clause’s guarantee cannot be allowed to become a potential snare for those who reasonably rely upon it. If, after a facially unqualified midtrial dismissal of one count, the trial has proceeded to the defendant’s introduction of evidence, the acquittal must be treated as final, unless the availability of reconsideration has been plainly established by pre-existing rule or case authority expressly applicable to midtrial rulings on the sufficiency of the evidence. That requirement was not met here.

Id. at 1137. Because Massachusetts at the time had no such rule or case authority allowing reconsideration of midtrial rulings on sufficiency of the evidence adverse to the state, the Court held that Mr. Smith’s double jeopardy rights were violated when the trial court reconsidered its previous ruling, reversed itself, and submitted the firearm charge to the jury. The circumstances of the ease before us fit squarely within the parameters the Court outlined in Smith to merit the protection provided by the Double Jeopardy Clause.

Here, as in Smith, at the close of the State’s case, defense counsel moved for judgment of dismissal on the charge of providing a false identity to a law enforcement officer. Following the State’s response, which did not include a request for a continuance to research an issue or for leave to reopen its case after hearing of its alleged evidentiary deficiencies, the trial court proceeded to rule.

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R.J.W. v. State, 910 So. 2d 357, 2005 Fla. App. LEXIS 14536, 2005 WL 2242698 (Fla. Ct. App. 2005).

910 So. 2d 357 (R.J.W. v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

United States v. Ball
163 U.S. 662 (Supreme Court, 1896)
United States v. Wilson
420 U.S. 332 (Supreme Court, 1975)
United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co.
430 U.S. 564 (Supreme Court, 1977)
Burks v. United States
437 U.S. 1 (Supreme Court, 1978)
Swisher v. Brady
438 U.S. 204 (Supreme Court, 1978)
Smalis v. Pennsylvania
476 U.S. 140 (Supreme Court, 1986)
Smith v. Massachusetts
543 U.S. 462 (Supreme Court, 2005)