State v. Barquet

262 So. 2d 431
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedFebruary 14, 1972
Docket41596
StatusPublished
Cited by49 cases

This text of 262 So. 2d 431 (State v. Barquet) 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
State v. Barquet, 262 So. 2d 431 (Fla. 1972).

Opinion

262 So.2d 431 (1972)

STATE of Florida, Appellant,
v.
Luis Bulas BARQUET et al., Appellees.

No. 41596.

Supreme Court of Florida.

February 14, 1972.

*433 Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and Raymond L. Marky, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.

Marvin J. Emory, Jr., of Law Offices of Carr & Emory, Miami, for appellees.

Robert M. Brakes, Coral Gables, and Robert B. Kane, Tallahassee, as amici curiae.

ADKINS, Justice.

This is a direct appeal from the Criminal Court of Record of Dade County, Florida, which held that Fla. Stat. §§ 782.10 and 797.01, F.S.A., relating to abortions, were unconstitutional. We have jurisdiction. Fla. Const., art. V, § 4(2), F.S.A.

At the outset, we emphasized that the emotional and explosive question of whether an abortion should be prohibited or permitted is a matter entirely within the discretion of the legislative branch of government, subject only to constitutional limitations. Governmental powers are divided into the executive, legislative and judicial branches. The lawmaking function is the chief legislative power. This function involves the exercise of discretion as to the contents of a statute, its policy or what it shall be. See 4 F.L.P., Constitutional Law, § 33. The judicial branch is constitutionally forbidden from exercising any powers appertaining to the legislative branch (Fla. Const., art. II, § 3), and will not suggest a solution to this sensitive problem.

We are concerned only with the constitutionality of Fla. Stat. §§ 782.10 and 797.01, F.S.A. The validity of both statutes must be considered together in the present challenge since this Court is bound by the construction it placed upon Fla. Stat. § 797.01, F.S.A., in Carter v. State, 155 So.2d 787 (Fla. 1963). In Carter v. State, supra, we held that Fla. Stat. § 797.01, F.S.A., was able to withstand the constitutional challenge only if considered in pari materia with Fla. Stat. § 782.10, F.S.A. The Legislature's subsequent reenactment of Fla. Stat. § 797.01, F.S.A., affirmed this interpretation. See Walsingham v. State, 250 So.2d 857 (Fla. 1971). Therefore, these statutes must stand or fall together. They read as follows:

"782.10 Abortion. — Every person who shall administer to any woman pregnant with a quick child any medicine, drug or substance whatever, or shall use or employ any instrument or other means, with intent thereby to destroy such child, unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such mother, or shall have been advised by two physicians to be necessary for such purpose, shall, in case the death of such child or of such mother be thereby produced, be deemed guilty of manslaughter."
"797.01 Performing abortion; punishment. — Whoever with intent to procure miscarriage of any woman unlawfully administers to her, or advises or prescribes for her, or causes to be taken by her, any poison, drug, medicine or other noxious thing, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means whatever with the like intent, or with like intent aids or assists therein, shall, if the woman does not die in consequence thereof, be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding seven years, or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars."

If the statutes contained a clause reading "necessary to the preservation of the mother's life or health" instead of the clause "necessary to preserve the life," the statutes could be held constitutional (United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62, 91 S.Ct. 1294, 28 L.Ed.2d 601), for a statute could constitutionally provide for an abortion if same is necessary for the preservation of the mother's health. See Walsingham v. State, supra.

*434 Appellees were charged, inter alia, with conspiring to commit abortions and performing abortions. The trial judge granted a motion to dismiss the information and held the above-quoted statutes to be unconstitutional, relying upon the reasoning in Walsingham v. State, supra.

Appellees advance two reasons why the statutes should be held unconstitutional:

First: Fla. Stat. § 797.01, F.S.A., is vague, and, therefore, violates the United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment;
Second: Fla. Stat. § 797.01, F.S.A., whether read in pari meteria with Fla. Stat. § 782.10, F.S.A., as required by Carter v. State, 155 So.2d 787 (Fla. 1963), or not, is an unreasonable invasion into a female's fundamental right to privacy, thereby violating substantive due process guaranteed by United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment.

If a statute in defining a criminal offense, omits certain necessary and essential provisions which serve to impress the acts committed as being wrongful and criminal, the courts are not at liberty to supply the deficiencies or undertake to make the statute definite and certain. See State ex rel. Lee v. Buchanan, 191 So.2d 33, text 36 (Fla. 1966). To do so would be to perform a lawmaking function in violation of Fla. Const. art. II, § 3. The public must be informed as to acts which are crimes by statute, rather than by judicial opinion.

As stated in Aztec Motel, Inc. v. State ex rel. Faircloth, 251 So.2d 849 (Fla. 1971):

"An act of the Legislature, to have the force and effect of a law, must be reasonably definite and certain. 82 C.J.S. Statutes § 68a. This is an essential element of due process of law. The constitutional requirement of definiteness is violated by an enactment that fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute. The underlying principle is that no man shall be held responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed. The vice of vagueness in statutes is the treachery they conceal in determining what persons are included or what acts are prohibited." (p. 854)

The Attorney General, disturbed by the opinion rendered in Walsingham v. State, supra, cites several cases holding that the clause, "unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such mother," does not make the statute vague. These authorities are: Rosen, M.D. v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 318 F. Supp. 1217 (La.E.D. 1970); State v. Abodeely, 179 N.W.2d 347 (Iowa 1970); Steinberg v. Brown, 321 F. Supp. 741 (Ohio N.D. 1970).

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