STATE, DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS v. Goad

754 So. 2d 95, 2000 Fla. App. LEXIS 2692, 2000 WL 266334
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMarch 13, 2000
Docket1D99-0836
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 754 So. 2d 95 (STATE, DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS v. Goad) 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
STATE, DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS v. Goad, 754 So. 2d 95, 2000 Fla. App. LEXIS 2692, 2000 WL 266334 (Fla. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

754 So.2d 95 (2000)

STATE of Florida, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Appellant,
v.
Ollie James GOAD, Appellee.

No. 1D99-0836.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

March 13, 2000.
Rehearing Denied April 12, 2000.

*96 Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General and Charlie McCoy, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellant.

Appellee, pro se.

PADOVANO, J.

Section 960.297, Florida Statutes authorizes the state to initiate a civil action against a prison inmate to recover the costs of the inmate's incarceration. The issue in the present case is whether this statute can be applied retroactively. Because the statute affords a civil remedy for the recovery of subsistence costs incurred after its enactment and does not increase the penalty for the inmate's crime, we conclude that it can be applied retroactively without violating the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws.

Ollie James Goad has been an inmate in the custody of the Department of Corrections since February 1991. Mr. Goad initiated a civil action against the Department in 1995, for injuries he sustained when he was attacked by another inmate. In response to this claim, the Department filed a motion for a summary judgment and a counterclaim under sections 960.293 and 960.297, Florida Statutes (Supp.1994) to recover the costs of Mr. Goad's incarceration. Section 960.293 provides that a defendant who is incarcerated for an offense that is neither a capital offense nor a life felony offense is liable to the state in the amount of $50 per day for the costs of incarceration. By the terms of section *97 960.297, the state may recover these costs for the portion of the offender's remaining sentence after July 1, 1994, the effective date of the law.

The trial court granted the Department's motion for summary judgment on the cause of action asserted in the complaint, and Mr. Goad then filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings as to the counterclaim. He argued that the application of section 960.297 would violate the ex post facto clauses of the state and federal constitutions, because the statute was not in effect at the time he committed the criminal offenses resulting in his incarceration. The trial court agreed and held that section 960.297 could not be applied retroactively. Following the rendition of a final judgment, the Department appealed to this court to challenge the trial court's disposition of the counterclaim.

Sections 960.293 and 960.297 are part of the Civil Restitution Lien and Crime Victims' Remedy Act. See §§ 960.29-297, Fla. Stat. (Supp.1994). The Florida Supreme Court has determined that the relevant provisions of this Act do not violate an inmate's right to due process of law or equal protection of the law. See Ilkanic v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 705 So.2d 1371 (Fla.1998). These issues are no longer open for consideration in the lower courts, but the appeal in this case presents a constitutional issue not decided in the Ilkanic case. Here we must decide whether the Act is invalid as an ex post facto law.[1]

Both the state and federal constitutions prohibit the enactment of ex post facto laws. See U.S. Const. Art 1, § 9; Art. I, § 10, Fla. Const. Section 960.297 applies retroactively to the existing population of prison inmates, but that alone does not make it an ex post facto law. The critical inquiry is whether the statute imposes an increased penalty for a crime already committed. As the United States Supreme Court said in Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 370, 117 S.Ct. 2072, 2086, 138 L.Ed.2d 501 (1997), the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws "pertain[s] exclusively to penal statutes." See also Seaboard Sys. R.R., Inc. v. Clemente, 467 So.2d 348 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985).

A more precise standard for determining whether a statute violates the ex post facto clause is set out in Gwong v. Singletary, 683 So.2d 109 (Fla.1996). There, the court explained that, "[i]n evaluating whether a law violates the ex post facto clause, a two-prong test must be applied: (1) whether the law is retrospective in its effect; and (2) whether the law alters the definition of criminal conduct or increases the penalty by which a crime is punishable." Id. at 112; see also State v. A.C., 714 So.2d 617, 619 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998) (holding that "[a] law violates the ex post facto clause of the constitution only if it punishes as a crime an act which was not a crime when committed, makes the punishment for a crime more onerous than it was at commission, or deprives one charged with a crime of a defense available when the crime was committed"). The United States Supreme Court has expressed the applicable standard in similar terms. For example, in Lynce v. Mathis, 519 U.S. 433, 441, 117 S.Ct. 891, 896, 137 L.Ed.2d 63 (1997), the Court wrote that an ex post facto law is one that disadvantages the offender by "altering the definition of criminal conduct or increasing the punishment for the crime."

It follows then that the prohibition against ex post facto legislation cannot be applied to a civil statute that is entirely *98 remedial. Moreover, a law is not punitive merely because it can be applied in the context of a criminal case. For example, in Kansas v. Hendricks, the Court held that a statute authorizing the involuntary commitment of a sexually violent predator does not violate the ex post facto law clause of the United States Constitution. The Court reasoned that involuntary commitment statutes are not punitive and that they afford only a civil remedy. See also Fletcher v. State, 699 So.2d 346, 347 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997)(holding that the Florida Sexual Predator Act is regulatory and does not "constitute punishment subject to constitutional ex post facto challenges"); State v. Greenberg, 564 So.2d 1176 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990)(finding that the expungement statute was not an ex post facto law because it was remedial and not punitive).

Whether a law is punitive or remedial is an issue that cannot be resolved solely by discerning legislative intent. If the legislature has expressly stated its intent in the text of the statute, however, the court must give that expression great weight in determining whether the law is civil or criminal. See Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 118 S.Ct. 488, 493, 139 L.Ed.2d 450 (1997) (noting that "only the clearest proof will suffice to override legislative intent and transform what has been denominated a civil remedy into a criminal penalty"); see also United States v. Ward, 448 U.S. 242, 100 S.Ct. 2636, 65 L.Ed.2d 742 (1980). When the Legislature enacted the statute at issue here, it clearly expressed its intent to afford only civil remedies.

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Bluebook (online)
754 So. 2d 95, 2000 Fla. App. LEXIS 2692, 2000 WL 266334, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-dept-of-corrections-v-goad-fladistctapp-2000.