Ryan Wade Massey v. State of Florida
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
Date FiledJanuary 14, 2021
Docket1D19-4281
StatusPublished
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Full Opinion
FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
STATE OF FLORIDA
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No. 1D19-4281
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RYAN WADE MASSEY,
Appellant,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
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On appeal from the Circuit Court for Jackson County.
Wade Mercer, Judge.
January 14, 2021
PER CURIAM.
AFFIRMED. See Owens v. State, 303 So. 3d 993, 994–95 (Fla.
1st DCA 2020) (holding that regardless of whether section
948.06(2) applies to a defendant who committed an offense before
the statute was amended, when imposing sentence for a violation
of probation, a trial court is limited under subsection 948.06(2)(f)1.
to modifying or continuing probation or imposing a sentence of up
to ninety days in county jail only when a defendant “compl[ies]
with all four conditions in subsection 948.06(2)(f)1”).
KELSEY and M.K. THOMAS, JJ., concur; TANENBAUM, J., concurs
with opinion.
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Not final until disposition of any timely and
authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
9.331.
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TANENBAUM, J., concurring.
The trial court correctly determined that Massey was not
entitled to the application of section 948.06(2)(f), Florida Statutes
(2019), in his case. Just as this court concluded in Owens, Massey
in this case had to meet “all four conditions in section 948.06(2)(f)1.
to receive the benefit of the statute.” Owens v. State, 303 So. 3d
993, 994–95 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020). From a textualist perspective,
that conclusion is appropriate for one simple reason. To conclude
otherwise would be to say that “everyone on probation would meet
the requirement of subsection 948.06(2)(f)1.a.” and “[t]he
conditions in b. through d. would be superfluous.” Id. at 997; see
also id. n.5 (noting use of the plural “criteria” as a conjunctive
reference to the conditions in paragraph 1 that need to be satisfied
to trigger “mandatory modification or continuation”); cf. ANTONIN
SCALIA & BRYAN A. GARNER, READING LAW 174 (2012) (“If possible,
every word and every provision is to be given effect . . . . None
should needlessly be given an interpretation that causes it to
duplicate another provision or to have no consequence.”).
In this context, there can be no doubt that “any” was a
scrivener’s error and should have been “all,” so we as a court have
the very narrow authority to apply the statute with this correction
in order to fully effectuate all of its terms. Cf. SCALIA & GARNER,
supra, at 237–38 (explaining that to avoid “error-correction for
absurdity [becoming] a slippery slope,” which “can lead to judicial
revision of public and private texts to make them (in the judges’
view) more reasonable,” there need to be limiting conditions to its
application: the so-called “absurdity” must be “a disposition that
no reasonable person could intend”; and the “absurdity must be
reparable by changing or supplying a particular word or phrase
whose inclusion or omission was obviously a technical or
ministerial error” (emphasis supplied)); ANTONIN SCALIA,
Common-Law Courts in a Civil-Law System, in A MATTER OF
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INTERPRETATION 17 (Amy Gutmann ed., 1997) (highlighting
importance of looking for “‘objectified’ intent—the intent that a
reasonable person would gather from the text of the law, placed
alongside the remainder of the corpus juris”—in order to avoid
having “the meaning of a law determined by what the lawgiver
meant, rather than by what the lawgiver promulgated”).
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Jessica J. Yeary, Public Defender, and Joel Arnold, Assistant
Public Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellant.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Jennifer J. Moore, Assistant
Attorney General, and Jovona I. Parker, Assistant Attorney
General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
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