In Shelton v. Secretary, Dep't of
Corrections, Slip Copy, 2011 WL 3236040 (M.D.Fla.) the United States District
Court held that a Florida drug statute which expressly eliminated mens rea
was unconstitutional. As noted by the court, Florida exempted itself from the
age-old axiom: “The act does not make a person guilty unless the mind be also
guilty.” DAD recommends that the entire opinion be reviewed by the reader with
the question in mind being:
Is a Felony DUI based upon "any amount
of drug" in the system also unconstitutional? Are other DUI statutes that
carry severe penalties without mens rea also unconstitutional?
A recent DUI drugs case in Illinois, People
v. Martin, is illustrative of this issue. There, a person who had mere
nanograms of methamphetamine in his system (so small that it was missed during
both hospital and police lab tests) was held criminally responsible for an
accident involving the death of another individual, simply because these
nanograms from illegal drug use days or weeks earlier still remained in his
system. the Illinois Supreme Court held that there was nop need to prove
impairment, or proximate cause between the drug use and the injury/accident, in
order to impose a jail sentence of 3-14 years.
Here are some of the good quotes from the
below opinion of the U.S. District Court:
"The
requirement to prove some mens rea to establish guilt for conduct that
is criminalized is firmly rooted in Supreme Court jurisprudence and, as
reflected in the ineffectual response by the State to this petition, cannot be
gainsaid here. Well established principles of American criminal law provide:
The contention that an injury can amount to
a crime only when inflicted by intention is no provincial or transient notion.
It is as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom
of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to
choose between good and evil. A relation between some mental element and
punishment for a harmful act is almost as instinctive as the child's familiar
exculpatory ‘But I didn't mean to,’ and has afforded the rational basis for a tardy
and unfinished substitution of deterrence and reformation in place of
retaliation and vengeance as the motivation for public prosecution.... [T]o
constitute any crime there must first be a ‘vicious will.’"
* * *
"To be sure,
the law recognizes the authority of government to fashion laws that punish
without proof of intent, but not without severe constraints and constitutional
safeguards. As the Supreme Court explained:
"[T]he Due Process Clause requires the
prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt all of the elements included in
the definition of the offense of which the defendant is charged. Proof of the
nonexistence of all affirmative defenses has never been constitutionally
required; and we perceive no reason to fashion such a rule in this case and
apply it to the statutory defense at issue here.
This view may seem to permit state
legislatures to reallocate burdens of proof by labeling as affirmative defenses
at least some elements of the crimes now defined in their statutes. But
there are obviously constitutional limits beyond which the States may not go in
this regard."
* * * *
"It cannot
reasonably be asserted that the penalty for violating Florida's drug statute is
“relatively small.” A violation of § 893.13(1)(a)(1), for delivery of a controlled substance as
defined in Schedule I, Fla. Stat.
893.03(1), is a second degree felony, ordinarily punishable by imprisonment
for up to fifteen years. Fla. Stat. §
775.082(3)(c). For habitual violent felony offenders, such as Petitioner, a
violation of § 893.13(1)(a)(1) is punishable by imprisonment for up to
thirty years and includes a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence. See Fla. Stat. §
775.084(1)(b). Other provisions of Florida's drug statute subject offenders
to even harsher penalties, including ordinary imprisonment for thirty years for
first time offenders and life imprisonment for recidivists. See, e.g., Fla. Stat. §§ 893.13(1)(b)
(delivery of more than 10 grams of a
schedule I substance); § 893.13(1)(c) (delivery of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a
child care facility, school, park, community center, or public recreational
facility).
"No strict
liability statute carrying penalties of the magnitude of Fla. Stat. § 893.13
has ever been upheld under federal law. In fact, the Supreme Court has
considered a penalty of up to three years' imprisonment or a fine not exceeding
$100,000.00 too harsh to impose on a strict liability offense. See Gypsum, 438 U.S. at 442. In Gypsum, the Supreme
Court considered the penalties for an individual violation of the Sherman
Antitrust Act and opined, “[t]he severity of these sanctions provides further
support for our conclusion that the [Act] should not be construed as creating
strict-liability crimes.” Id. Similarly, in Staples, the Supreme
Court declined to construe the National Firearms Act as a strict liability
statute given its “harsh” penalty of up to ten years' imprisonment. Staples, 511 U.S. at 616. As the Supreme Court
explained:
" The potentially harsh penalty
attached to violation of § 5861(d)-up to 10 years' imprisonment-confirms our reading
of the Act. Historically, the penalty imposed under a statute has been a
significant consideration in determining whether the statute should be
construed as dispensing with mens rea. Certainly, the cases that first
defined the concept of the public welfare offense almost uniformly involved
statutes that provided for only light penalties such as fines or short jail
sentences, not imprisonment in the state penitentiary."
* * * *
" [W]hile
the Third and Sixth Circuits disagree over whether the outer bounds of due
process lie at a one or two-year strict liability sentence, the State does not
cite, and the Court has not located, any precedent applying federal law to
sustain a penalty of fifteen years, thirty years, and/or life imprisonment for
a strict liability offense. In fact, at least one Circuit Court of Appeals has
expressly stated that a twenty-year strict liability provision would be
unconstitutional. See United States v. Heller, 579 F.2d 990 (6th Cir.1978).
In Heller, the Sixth Circuit considered an interstate
extortion/kidnapping statute that was silent regarding mens rea and
carried a maximum penalty of twenty years' imprisonment. Id. at 993. The
Sixth Circuit held that a mens rea element must be inferred by judicial
construction because the statute would otherwise violate due process. Id.
at 994 (elucidating, “if Congress attempted to define a Malum prohibitum
offense that placed an onerous stigma on an offender's reputation and that
carried a severe penalty, the Constitution would be offended[.]”).
* * *
"The Court
declines to grant the State broad, sweeping authority to impose such an outcome
in direct contravention of well-established principles of American criminal
jurisprudence—that no individual should be subjected to condemnation and
prolonged deprivation of liberty unless he acts with criminal intent—and
binding Supreme Court precedent governing the constitutional analysis of strict
liability offenses. See Staples, 511 U.S. at 619–20. Because Fla. Stat. § 893.13
imposes harsh penalties, gravely besmirches an individual's reputation, and
regulates and punishes otherwise innocuous conduct without proof of knowledge
or other criminal intent, the Court finds it violates the due process clause
and that the statute is unconstitutional on its face. Accordingly, Petitioner's
request for habeas relief on claim one is GRANTED.
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