STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
JEFFREY SCOTT RATNER, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 2005-05-18
No. 4D04-2513
POLEN, SHAHOOD, JJ„ concur.
902 So. 2d 267 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2005) Positive Treatment
Cited by 4 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

Florida appealed a county court's denial of its motion in limine regarding the admissibility of an excited utterance statement in light of Crawford v. Washington. The district court of appeal lacked jurisdiction to review this non-final order and transferred the appeal to circuit court, finding that only certain pre-trial orders (like suppression of evidence) can be directly appealed to the district court.


Holding

The district court of appeal lacked jurisdiction to review the non-final motion in limine order because it did not fall within the categories of appealable pre-trial orders under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.140(c). The appeal was transferred to circuit court, which has authority to hear appeals from county courts when provided by general law, including appeals of 'other pre-trial orders' under section 924.07(1)(h).


Headnotes

[1] District courts of appeal lack jurisdiction to review non-final county court orders certifying questions of great public importance unless authorized by Florida Rule of A…

[2] Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.030(b)(4)(B) permits review of non-final county court orders certified as important only if such orders are otherwise appealable to…

Previewing 2 of 5 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Key Quotes

“Because this is a non-final order, it would be appealable only under subsection (B), which authorizes certification if the order is appealable under rule 9.140(c). The order in this case, which denies the State's motion in limine, is not such an order.”

Establishes that the district court lacked jurisdiction because the non-final order did not meet the statutory requirements for certification review.

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

The State sought a motion in limine regarding the admissibility of a statement that would qualify as an excited utterance exception to hearsay. The co…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
KLEIN, J.

KLEIN, J.

We withdraw our previously filed opinion and replace it with this opinion.

The State appeals the county court’s denial of its motion in limine. The court certified the following question as one of great public importance:

SHOULD THE DECISION OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT IN CRAWFORD V. WASHINGTON, [541 U.S. 36] ,123 S.CT. 1354 [158 L.ED.2D 177] (2004) BE INTERPRETED TO PRECLUDE THE ADMISSION OF A STATEMENT WHICH WOULD OTHERWISE BE ADMISSIBLE UNDER THE EXCITED UTTERANCE EXCEPTION TO HEARSAY?

We must dismiss this appeal because we do not have jurisdiction to review this type of non-final order of a county court which certifies a question of great public importance.

Article V, Section 4(b) of the Florida Constitution is the authority for the jurisdiction of district courts of appeal and, in the case of non-final orders, gives the Florida Supreme Court exclusive power to authorize review by the adoption of rules. The rule authorizing review of county court orders certifying questions of great public importance is Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.030(b)(4), which allows review of:

(A) final orders of the county court, otherwise appealable to the circuit court under these rules, that the county court has certified to be of great public importance;

(B) non-final orders, otherwise appeal-able to the circuit court under rule 9.140(c), that the county court has certified to be of great public importance.

Because this is a non-final order, it would be appealable only under subsection (B), which authorizes certification if the order is appealable under rule 9.140(c). The order in this case, which denies the State’s motion in limine, is not such an order. The State argues that we have jurisdiction to review this pre-trial order under section 924.07(l)(h), Florida Statutes (2004) which purports to allow the state to appeal “other pre-trial orders,” and section 924.07(1)(Z), which allows the state to appeal “an order or ruling suppressing evidence or evidence in limine at trial.” As is apparent from our earlier discussion, however, our constitution grants the power to authorize non-final appeals to district courts of appeal to our supreme court. Although some provisions of section 924.07(1) have been adopted in rule 9.140(c) by the Florida Supreme Court, the portions relied on by the State have not been adopted by rule and are unconstitutional as to appeals to district courts of appeal. State v. Gaines, 770 So. 2d 1221 (Fla.2000); State v. Smith, 260 So. 2d 489 (Fla.1972).

The state’s reliance on eases such as State v. Muldowny, 871 So. 2d 911 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004), State v. Slaney, 653 So. 2d 422 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995), and State v. Brigham, 694 So. 2d 793 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997) is misplaced. Unlike the present case, in which the pretrial ruling concerned the admissibility of an excited utterance of a witness, those cases involved the suppression of evidence obtained by search and seizure, which the state is permitted to appeal under rule 9.140(c)(1)(B).

The provisions in section 924.07(1) relied on by the State in this case are not unconstitutional as to the appeal of non-final orders from county court to circuit court. Article V, § 5(b) of the Florida Constitution provides that circuit courts have jurisdiction to hear appeals “when provided by general law.” This order does appear to fall within the category of “other pre-trial orders,” which the state can appeal to circuit court under section 924.07(l)(h). We accordingly transfer the appeal to circuit court.

POLEN, SHAHOOD, JJ„ concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • State v. Ratner, 948 So. 2d 700 (Fla. 2007)
    …ovisions of section 924.07(1) have been adopted in rule 9.140(c) by the Florida Supreme Court, the portions relied upon by the State have not been adopted by rule and are unconstitutional as to appeals to district courts of appeal.” State v. Ratner, 902 So. 2d 267, 269 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005). The State subsequently petitioned this Court. This Court granted jurisdiction to resolve the issue of whether the nonfinal county court order denying the State’s motion to admit the hearsay statement and certifying a questi…
  • State v. Bjorkland, 924 So. 2d 971 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006)
    …l to the circuit court non-final orders.” It is likely that the State did not file an appeal under this statute because the statute has been held unconstitutional in the context of appeals from circuit court to district courts. See State v. Ratner, 902 So. 2d 267, 269 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005), review pending, No. SC05-1007 (Fla. June 3, 2005). However, district courts of appeal and circuit courts obtain their appellate jurisdiction from two distinctly different sections of article Y. As a result, the State’s stat…
    1 / 2

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw