WILLIAM H. STEHLING, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 1st DCA | 1980-12-04
No. WW-95
THOMPSON, J., and WOODIE A. LILES (Retired), Associate Judge, concur.
391 So. 2d 287 Florida District Court of Appeal, First District (1980) Negative Treatment
Cited by 6 cases

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Holding

A statute authorizing sentence reduction for providing substantial assistance to authorities does not unconstitutionally burden the privilege against self-incrimination, even if it induces post-conviction statements.


Headnotes

[1] A defendant convicted under a statute offering sentencing benefits in exchange for substantial assistance has standing to challenge the statute as facially unconstitution…

[2] The Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination continues until sentence has been pronounced and an appeal has been foregone or completed.

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Facts & Procedural History

Stehling was convicted of cocaine trafficking and appealed, arguing the statute allowing sentence reduction for substantial assistance unconstitutiona…

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Opinion of the Court
ROBERT P. SMITH, Jr., Judge.

. . . provides substantial assistance in the identification, arrest, or conviction of any of his accomplices, accessories, co-conspirators, or principals....

Stehling was not subjected to the 15 years minimum mandatory sentence which he says coerces relinquishment of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, because after being tried, found guilty, and adjudicated guilty, Stehling provided the State the prescribed “substantial assistance” and was sentenced to five years probation on condition that he serve six months imprisonment. On this account the State urges Stehling has no standing to attack the statute, because he has not been subjected to a minimum mandatory sentence, he has not been punished for remaining silent, and he has profited by the statute which now he contends is unconstitutional. See, e. g., State v. Hagan, 387 So. 2d 943 (Fla.1980).

But because Stehling challenges the entire statute under which he stands convicted, reasoning that subsection (3) is an integral and inseparable part whose invalidity condemns the whole, we recognize Stehling’s standing to attack the statute, the predicate for his conviction, on the narrow ground that it is facially unconstitutional for coercing self-incrimination.

We also acknowledge, though Stehl-ing’s “substantial assistance” to the authorities is not evidenced or described here, that in eliciting a defendant’s statements concerning his “accomplices, accessories, co-conspirators, or principals,” the statute does tend to induce self-incrimination, at least of the offense for which the defendant is to be sentenced. That the statute offers its inducement to the defendant at a time when he has already been adjudged guilty, either on a plea of guilty or on a verdict, does not dissolve his constitutional privilege against self-accusal concerning that crime. The privilege continues until sentence has been pronounced and an appeal has been foregone or completed. See King v. State, 353 So. 2d 180 (Fla.3d DCA 1977); Annot., “Plea of Guilty or Conviction as Resulting in Loss of Privilege Against Self-Incrimination as to Crime in Question,” 9 A.L.R.3d 990 (1966); cases collected in Commonwealth v. Rodgers, 372 A. 2d 771, 780 (Pa.1977).

Although we affirm both that Stehl-ing has standing to attack the statute and that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination endures in the post-conviction, presentence context, we find no merit in Stehling’s constitutional position. The case of Stehling himself, who pleaded not guilty and was tried by a jury, illustrates that Section 893.135 extracts no penalty for a defendant’s refusal to plead guilty; the prescribed minimum mandatory penalties apply irrespective of whether guilt is determined by plea or by verdict, and the statutory incentive of a diminished sentence is offered in either case. Nor is the relinquishment of an appeal on the merits a condition of securing the benefits offered the defendant by subsection (3).

In self-incrimination terms, therefore, the price paid by one convicted under and seeking -the sentencing benefits of Section 893.-135 is hardly as great as the price paid by one charged under some other criminal statute who is induced by his counsel’s bargaining with the prosecutor to plead guilty and incriminate himself and others in order to secure a reduced charge or favorable sentence. Yet an inducement of that sort, given as an alternative to more unpleasant consequences which would naturally flow from judicial events, is not regarded as an undue burden on the privilege against self-incrimination. See Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 98 S.Ct. 663, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978); Roberts v. United States, 445 U.S. 552, 100 S.Ct. 1358, 63 L.Ed.2d 622 (1980); Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970).

Those decisions teach that when the defendant retains a real choice between fully exercising all his constitutional rights and privileges and relinquishing some of them to avoid unpleasant consequences that may naturally occur if the system proceeds unchecked, the defendant’s rights and privileges are not unduly burdened by the difficulty of the choice.

Section 893.135 does not unconstitutionally compromise the accused’s privilege against self-incrimination.

AFFIRMED.

THOMPSON, J., and WOODIE A. LILES (Retired), Associate Judge, concur.


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Citator

Cited By

  • Stone v. State, 402 So. 2d 1330 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981)
    …rence to any such motion. Upon good cause shown, the motion may be filed and heard in camera. The judge hearing the motion may reduce or suspend the sentence if he finds that the defendant rendered such substantial assistance. In Stehling v. State, 391 So. 2d 287 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981), this Court found that the foregoing statute does not unconstitutionally burden an accused’s privilege against self-incrimination, secured by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In State v. Benitez, 395 So. 2d…
  • Knight v. State, 398 So. 2d 908 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981)
    …on 893.135, Florida Statutes (1979), is foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding the constitutionality of this drug-trafficking statute under similar attack. State v. Benitez, 395 So. 2d 514 (Fla.1981). See also Stehling v. State, 391 So. 2d 287 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980). AFFIRMED. THOMPSON, J., and WOODIE A. LILES, (Retired) Associate Judge, concur. . The Fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, held applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 8…
  • Soltesz v. State, 394 So. 2d 1078 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981)
    …M. Appellant’s attack on the constitutionality of Section 893.135, Florida Statutes (1979), the so-called “drug-trafficking” law on Fifth Amendment grounds raises issues already decided adversely to his position by this court in Stehling v. State, 391 So. 2d 287 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980). The decision of the Florida Supreme Court in State v. Benitez, 395 So. 2d 514 (Fla. 1981), holding the statute (specifically subsections (1) and (3)) constitutional, disposes of the Fifth Amendment argument as well as all other…

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