By Jim Saunders ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — An appeals court Wednesday rejected part of a 2023 state law that made pretrial-release changes for people accused of crimes, ruling that it unconstitutionally infringed on the authority of the Florida Supreme Court.
A panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal, in a 2-1 decision, sided with two people who were arrested in March on misdemeanor domestic violence charges. During first-appearance hearings, a judge, relying on the law, said they would not be eligible for pretrial release on “nonmonetary” conditions and imposed $1,000 bonds for each, Wednesday’s decision said.
The defendants, Giselle Romero and Wachovia Middlebrooks, quickly challenged the constitutionality of the part of the 2023 law applying to what the state classifies as dangerous crimes.
That part of the law says, “A person arrested for a dangerous crime may not be granted nonmonetary pretrial release at a first appearance hearing if the court has determined there is probable cause to believe the person has committed the offense.”
The appeals court majority opinion, written by Judge Kevin Emas, said the Florida Supreme Court in 2005 rejected a similar law because it “violated separation of powers principles by infringing on the exclusive rulemaking authority” of the Supreme Court.
Emas wrote that while the Legislature has power to make “substantive” laws, the Supreme Court has the constitutional authority over “procedural” changes through legal rules. Like in the 2005 case, he wrote that the new law dealt with a procedural issue. He focused on the wording in the 2023 law related to probable cause.
“In sum, an arrestee’s substantive right to a probable cause determination is well-entrenched, grounded in the United States and Florida Constitutions, recognized a half-century ago by the United States Supreme Court, and governed by a procedural rule promulgated by the Florida Supreme Court,” Emas wrote in the decision joined by Chief Judge Thomas Logue.
Judge Norma Lindsey dissented, arguing that the case was moot because Romero and Middlebrooks — who were arrested in separate incidents — were released from jail after filing their challenges.
Emas, however, wrote that the Miami-based appeals court also has received three other cases raising the same constitutional issue. The other cases were deemed moot because defendants were released, but Emas said appeals courts have “jurisdiction to decide the merits where the issue is very likely to recur or is capable of repetition but evading review.”
Nevertheless, he also wrote that a committee has recommended to the Supreme Court a rule change that would incorporate the disputed part of the 2023 law, which took effect Jan. 1.
