Clines v. StateClines v. State
Does
In the judgment and sentence entered below, the circuit court designated appellant Michael Ray Clines as a habitual felony offender and a violent career criminal. Accordingly, appellant received a ten-year habitual offender term with a violent career criminal minimum mandatory of ten years. On appeal, Clines argues that his sentence is illegal as contrary to legislative intent. He relies upon the reasoning of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Oberst v. State, 796 So.2d 1263 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001). The Second District followed Oberst in Works v. State, 814 So.2d 1198 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002).
In response, the State relies upon our decision in Iman v. State, 784 So.2d 1265 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001), holding in a similar situation that no double jeopardy violation is shown because the resulting sentence is only one sentence with a minimum mandatory term. Appellant counters that Iman does not control because Iman only looked at double jeopardy and not legislative intent.
The Oberst court, relying upon its view of legislative intent, concluded that a dual designation as a habitual offender and violent career criminal “is not proper.” 796 So.2d at 1264. The court did not, however, completely eschew the language of double jeopardy. In fact, the court considered Grant v. State, 770 So.2d 655 (Fla.2000), which in turn borrowed from Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 493, 104 S.Ct. 2536, 81 L.Ed.2d 425 (1984), to observe, “one function of the double jeopardy clause is to protect against multiple punishments for the same offense, so as `to ensure that the sentencing discretion of the courts is confined to the limits established by the legislature.\‘” 796 So.2d at 1264 (quoting Johnson, 467 U.S. at 499, 104 S.Ct. 2536).
Oberst then examined
We would readily note that, in Florida law, use of the word “or” generally connotes “a disjunctive particle that marks an alternative....” Pompano Horse Club v. State, 93 Fla. 415, 111 So. 801, 805 (1927). Nevertheless, the question of legislative intent must be plumbed in order for a court to make an appropriate determination of whether use of the word “or” connotes only the disjunctive. As the Florida Supreme Court has observed:
There are, of course, familiar instances in which the conjunction `or\’ is held equivalent in meaning to the copulative conjunction `and,\’ and such meaning is often given the word `or\’ in order to effectuate the intention ... of the Legislature in enacting a statute, when it is clear that the word `or\’ is used in a copulative, and not in a disjunctive, sense.
Id. Accordingly, a connecting “or” should be read in the conjunctive sense if such is called for to insure that “the act is given its clear and obvious meaning.” Pinellas County v. Woolley, 189 So.2d 217, 219 (Fla. 2d DCA 1966). This court has acknowledged that the term `or\’ would generally be construed as being disjunctive and thereby indicating alternatives, but recognizes that “the case law also indicates that there are instances in which the conjunctive “or” is held equivalent to the copulative conjunction `and,\’ and such meaning is often given in order to effectuate the legislative intent in enacting a statute.” Suddath Van Lines, Inc. v. State, Dep‘t of Envtl. Prot., 668 So.2d 209, 212 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996). We must, therefore, properly determine legislative intent by analyzing the entire statute and not focus entirely upon the Legislature‘s choice of a particular conjunction in one subsection.
Here the Legislature had little choice but to use the disjunctive. Had the Legislature used the conjunctive “and,” the statute would have been hopelessly confusing and would have suggested that the trial court must make all three sentencing determinations, a situation that would be impossible on the facts of many cases. Looking at
Notably,
Finally, election of only one of the sentencing alternatives contravenes the actual provisions of
In our view, the entire statutory scheme of
WOLF, C.J., and LEWIS, J., concur.