This case comes before us upon the trial court’s denial of the appellant’s motion to dismiss and the entry of a plea of nolo contendere. We affirm.
In January, 1985, an officer from the Dania Police Department went to the appellant, Larry Sherrod’s, home to execute a misdemeanor arrest warrant. The officer found the appellant standing with a group of people in the parking lot of his apartment complex, approximately twenty-five to thirty feet from the building in which he resided. The officer arrested the appellant. The appellant was carrying a concealed weapon at the time of his arrest.
The appellant was charged with carrying a concealed weapon in violation of section 790.25, Florida Statutes (1983). The appellant moved for dismissal on the ground that his conduct was not unlawful. The appellant argued that his conduct was within section 790.25(3)(n), Florida Statutes (Supp.1984), which provides that it is not unlawful for a person to possess firearms “at his home.” The trial court denied the motion to dismiss. The court reasoned that the appellant did not fall within this statutory exception because he was not on his own property nor was he on property to which he had the exclusive right of possession. The appellant then pled nolo conten-dere, and he reserved his right to appeal this issue.
The case law does not support the appellant’s contention that he fell within the statutory exception for carrying a weapon “at his home.” In McNair v. State,
The appellant relies on our recent decision in Collins v. State,
In Peoples v. State,
The appellant also argues that the concealed weapons statute is unconstitutionally vague because it fails to set out what behavior is prohibited where it excludes from the operation of the concealed weapons statute one carrying weapons “at his home.” In Alexander v. State, 477 So.2d 557 (Fla.1985) (quoting Zachary v. State,
The test of a statute insofar as vagueness is concerned is whether the language conveys sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed conduct when measured by common understanding and practice_“The constitutional requirement of definiteness is violated by a criminal statute 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 criminally responsible for conduct which he could not reasonably understand to be proscribed.”
Alexander, at 560. See Roth v. United States,
In Alexander, supra, the supreme court upheld another exception to the concealed weapons statute on a vagueness challenge. The court held that the phrase “gun case,” as defined in section 790.001(16), Florida Statutes (Supp.1984), was not unconstitutionally vague. Alexander, supra, at 560. In Peoples v. State, supra, the court avoided a vagueness challenge to the “at his home” exception in subsection (3)(n) of section 790.25 by deciding the case on other grounds. Peoples, supra, at 66.
In State v. Buckner,
Under the rationale of Alexander, supra, we conclude, as did the trial court, that the phrase “at his home” sufficiently apprises the ordinary person that this exception does not permit an individual to
AFFIRMED.
Notes
. Judge Lehan dissented in Buckner, but his analysis is not applicable in the present case. He concluded that "the words ... which relate to ... private tutors at home, viewed in isolation, seem to be sufficiently susceptible of common understanding." Buckner, supra, at 1234.
