STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
DANIEL JOSEPH MCELDOWNEY, APPELLEE

Fla. 5th DCA | 2012-10-19
No. 5D12-1532
SAWAYA, PALMER and LAWSON, JJ., concur.
99 So. 3d 610 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (2012) Positive Treatment
Cited by 1 case

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's Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed a county court decision striking down a statute creating a rebuttable presumption regarding the proper functioning of speed measuring devices used by law enforcement. The court held that the statute's procedural aspects are sufficiently intertwined with substantive traffic regulation that it does not unconstitutionally infringe on the supreme court's rulemaking authority.


Holding

The statute does not unconstitutionally intrude on the practice and procedure of the courts because its procedural aspects are so intimately intertwined with the legislature's substantive enactments regulating motorist conduct on state streets and highways that the statute does not impermissibly infringe on the supreme court's constitutional authority.


Headnotes

[1] A statute containing procedural aspects is not an impermissible intrusion on the courts' procedural authority if those provisions are intimately intertwined with the subs…

[2] A rebuttable presumption regarding the timely testing and proper functioning of a speed measuring device, created by statute, is intimately intertwined with the legislatu…

Previewing 2 of 4 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

“[W]here a statute contains some procedural aspects, but those provisions are so intimately intertwined with the substantive rights created by the statute, that statute will not impermissibly intrude on the practice and procedure of the courts in a constitutional sense, causing a constitutional challenge to fail.”

Establishes the legal standard for determining when procedural provisions in statutes do not violate the separation of powers doctrine.

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

Section 316.1905(3)(b) creates a rebuttable presumption that a speed measuring device used by law enforcement was timely tested and working properly u…

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
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

The State appeals from a final county court order declaring section 316.1905(3)(b), Florida Statutes (2011), unconstitutional as an infringement upon the supreme court’s authority to promulgate procedural law. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.030(b)(1)(A) and section 26.012(1), Florida Statutes, and reverse the order on appeal.

*611Section 316.1905(S)(b) creates a rebutta-ble presumption that a speed measuring device used by law enforcement to determine a motor vehicle’s speed was timely tested and working properly upon the production of a certificate to that effect. The county court struck the statute because it was bound by an earlier circuit court appellate opinion holding the statute unconstitutional as a procedural provision that had not been adopted by the supreme court.

As explained in Massey v. David, 979 So.2d 931 (Fla.2008):

[Wjhere a statute contains some procedural aspects, but those provisions are so intimately intertwined with the substantive rights created by the statute, that statute will not impermissibly intrude on the practice and procedure of the courts in a constitutional sense, causing a constitutional challenge to fail.

Id. at 937 (citing Caple v. Tuttle’s Design-Build, Inc., 753 So.2d 49, 54 (Fla.2000) and State v. Raymond, 906 So.2d 1045, 1049 (Fla.2005)). Although 316.1905(3)(b) does appear to be a procedural presumption affecting the burden of production, see Massey, 979 So.2d at 936-37, we agree with the State that this provision is intimately intertwined with the legislature’s substantive enactments regulating the conduct of motorists on the state’s streets and highways. Cf. In re Commitment of Cartwright, 870 So.2d 152, 162 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004), rev. denied, 914 So.2d 952 (Fla.2005) (upholding section 394.9155(5), Florida Statutes, which allows the state to present hearsay evidence in civil commitment proceedings under the Jimmy Ryce Act, based upon finding that this provision was intimately intertwined with substan-five provisions of the Jimmy Ryce Act and concluding that “[i]nvalidation of the legislative provision permitting the consideration of reliable hearsay evidence in Ryce Act proceedings would fundamentally alter the nature of those proceedings and disrupt the substantive statutory scheme established by the legislature for the civil commitment of sexually violent predators”).

In upholding section 316.1905(3)(b), we also note that the rebuttable presumption created by that section does not conflict with any existing procedural rule adopted by the supreme court. See Looney v. State, 803 So.2d 656, 676 (Fla.2001) (rejecting separation of powers challenge to statute creating procedural requirement allowing the admission of victim impact evidence in connection with death penalty sentencing hearings where the court “had promulgated no rule or procedure governing the admissibility of victim impact evidence at the time of the Legislature’s enactment (or at any time since)”).1

Accordingly, we reverse the order on appeal and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

SAWAYA, PALMER and LAWSON, JJ., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • State v. Clark (9th Cir. Ct. App. Div. 2014)
    …d evidence that a violation of section 316.074(1) or section 316.075(1)(c)(1) occurred, this evidence is self-authenticating, and it was in error that the trial court did not automatically admit this evidence at the hearing. See State v. McEldowney, 99 So. 3d 610 (Fla. 5th DCA 2012) (finding that statute creating rebuttable presumption that speed measuring device used by law enforcement was timely tested and working properly upon the production of a certificate to that effect did not unconstitutionally infri…

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw