Schmidt v. McDonough

951 So. 2d 797, 2006 WL 3740999
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedDecember 21, 2006
DocketSC01-2252
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 951 So. 2d 797 (Schmidt v. McDonough) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Schmidt v. McDonough, 951 So. 2d 797, 2006 WL 3740999 (Fla. 2006).

Opinion

951 So.2d 797 (2006)

Dan SCHMIDT, Petitioner,
v.
James R. McDONOUGH, etc., Respondent.

No. SC01-2252.

Supreme Court of Florida.

December 21, 2006.
Rehearing Denied March 9, 2007.

*798 Daniel Kevin Schmidt, pro se, Crestview, FL, for Petitioner.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Joy A. Stubbs, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, for Respondents.

PER CURIAM.

This case is before the Court on Dan Schmidt's petition for writ of mandamus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(8), Fla. Const. For reasons explained below, we deny the petition.

I. FACTS

Schmidt was convicted of a criminal offense and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment. He subsequently filed a mandamus petition in circuit court contesting a disciplinary report wherein he was disciplined for disobeying an order concerning the use of a computer in his computer class. He sought return of sixty days gain time and reinstatement into the class. After the court issued an order requiring him to pay a filing fee or to comply with the prisoner indigency statute, section 57.085, Florida Statutes (2001), *799 he filed a motion to exempt his petition from the filing fee requirement. The court denied the motion, and he filed a prohibition petition in district court seeking to bar the circuit court from dismissing his petition. The district court dismissed his prohibition petition after he failed to respond to the court's order to pay a filing fee for the district court proceeding, and the circuit court dismissed his mandamus petition after he failed to comply with that court's order to pay a filing fee or to comply with section 57.085.

Schmidt appealed the circuit court ruling, and the district court issued an order requiring him to pay an appellate filing fee or to comply with either section 57.081, Florida Statutes (2001), or section 57.085. Schmidt then filed in this Court the present mandamus petition seeking to bar the district court from dismissing his appeal. Several days later, the district court dismissed his appeal after he failed to respond to its order to pay a filing fee. This Court issued an order staying the proceedings in this Court pending resolution of Schmidt's mandamus petition in a different case, wherein the Court ultimately ruled that a prisoner's mandamus petition challenging the loss of gain time is a "collateral criminal proceeding" and is exempt from the prepayment and lien requirements of section 57.085. See Schmidt v. Crusoe, 878 So.2d 361 (Fla.2003). After Schmidt was decided, the Court issued an order in the present case asking the State to respond to Schmidt's current petition. The State now has responded, and Schmidt has replied.

Schmidt claims he is not required to comply with the certification requirements of section 57.081 or the prepayment and lien requirements of section 57.085. He also claims that a "mixed" petition — a petition where a civil claim is piggy-backed onto a gain time claim — is exempt from the prepayment and lien requirements of the prisoner indigency statute. The State, on the other hand, contends that Schmidt was wrongly decided and should be overruled.

II. THE APPLICABLE LAW

A. The Indigency Statutes

While some prisoner filings, such as habeas petitions, generally may be filed free of filing fees and other court costs, many prisoner filings are subject to such costs. See, e.g., §§ 34.041, 35.22, Fla. Stat. (2005). Both the general indigency statute, section 57.081, and the prisoner indigency statute, section 57.085, apply only to those filings that are not free of costs.

Florida's general indigency statute, section 57.081, was enacted in 1937 and contains a certification requirement for indigents:

57.081. Costs; right to proceed where prepayment of costs waived
(1) Any indigent person, except a prisoner as defined in s. 57.085, who is a party or intervenor in any judicial or administrative agency proceeding or who initiates such proceeding shall receive the services of the courts . . . with respect to such proceedings, despite his or her present inability to pay for these services. . . . Prepayment of costs to any court . . . is not required in any action if the party has obtained in each proceeding a certification of indigence in accordance with s. 27.52 or s. 57.082.[1]

*800 § 57.081, Fla. Stat. (2005) (emphasis added). Thus, under this statute, if a person is certified as indigent, the prepayment of costs is "waived."

The prisoner indigency statute, section 57.085, on the other hand, was enacted in 1996 and was intended to supplant the general indigency statute for most purposes where prisoners' civil filings are concerned, see ch. 96-106, at 92-93, Laws of Fla. The statute provides as follows in relevant part:

57.085. Deferral of prepayment of court costs and fees for indigent prisoners.—
(1) For the purposes of this section, the term "prisoner" means a person who has been convicted of a crime and is incarcerated for that crime or who is being held in custody pending extradition or sentencing.
(2) When a prisoner who is intervening in or initiating a judicial proceeding seeks to defer the prepayment of court costs and fees because of indigence, the prisoner must file an affidavit of indigence with the appropriate clerk of the court. The affidavit must contain complete information about the prisoner's identity; the nature and amount of the prisoner's income; all real property owned by the prisoner; all tangible and intangible property worth more than $100 which is owned by the prisoner; the amount of cash held by the prisoner; the balance of any checking, savings, or money market account held by the prisoner; the prisoner's dependents, including their names and ages; the prisoner's debts, including the name of each creditor and the amount owed to each creditor; and the prisoner's monthly expenses. The prisoner must certify in the affidavit whether the prisoner has been adjudicated indigent under this section, certified indigent under s. 57.081, or authorized to proceed as an indigent under 28 U.S.C. s.1915 by a federal court. The prisoner must attach to the affidavit a photocopy of the prisoner's trust account records for the preceding 6 months. . . .
. . . .
(4) When the clerk has found the prisoner to be indigent but concludes the prisoner is able to pay part of the court costs and fees required by law, the court shall order the prisoner to make, prior to service of process, an initial partial payment of those court costs and fees. The initial partial payment must total at least 20 percent of the average monthly balance of the prisoner's trust account for the preceding 6 months. . . .
(5) When the clerk has found the prisoner to be indigent, the court shall order the prisoner to make monthly payments of no less than 20 percent of the balance of the prisoner's trust account as payment of court costs and fees. When a court orders such payment, the Department of Corrections or the local detention facility shall place a lien on the inmate's trust account for the full amount of the court costs and fees, and shall withdraw money maintained in that trust account and forward the money, when the balance exceeds $10, to the appropriate clerk of the court until the *801 prisoner's court costs and fees are paid in full.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
951 So. 2d 797, 2006 WL 3740999, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schmidt-v-mcdonough-fla-2006.