D.F.M. v. State

Full title: D.F.M., A CHILD, APPELLANT, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District

Date published: Dec 30, 1994

647 So. 2d 1075 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1994)

Opinion

No. 94-998.

December 30, 1994.

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Orange County; Charles N. Prather, Judge.

James B. Gibson, Public Defender, and Anne Moorman Reeves, Asst. Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee and Mark S. Dunn, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The appellant, D.F.M., contends, and the state agrees, that he was placed in detention without benefit of the statutory findings prescribed by section 39.042(1), Florida Statutes. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with said statute.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

COBB and PETERSON, JJ., concur.

GRIFFIN, J., dissents with opinion.

GRIFFIN, Judge, dissenting.

This juvenile was adjudicated delinquent on March 29, 1994 for the offenses of possession of cocaine, a third degree felony, and sale of cocaine, a second degree felony. Within the preceding eighteen months, he had had four prior adjudications: two for delivery of cocaine, one for possession of cocaine and one for resisting an officer without violence. He was on community control at the time of his two most current felonies. He was placed on home detention pending disposition. At his dispositional hearing on April 14, 1994, the court committed him to the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, at level four. At his counsel's request, the court continued him on home detention pending placement.

On appeal, it is contended that, despite counsel's request, the lower court acted illegally in continuing home detention because the court failed to make any of the findings set forth in section 39.042(1), Florida Statutes (1993), that the child:

(a) Presents a substantial risk of not appearing at a subsequent hearing;

(b) Presents a substantial risk of inflicting bodily harm on others as evidenced by recent behavior;

(c) Presents a history of committing a serious property offense prior to adjudication, disposition, or placement;

(d) Requests protection from imminent bodily harm.

The state, in light of R.W. v. Soud, 639 So.2d 25 (Fla. 1994), concedes error.

It is by now clear that the detention provisions of part II of Chapter 39 are beyond redemption. With each legislative amendment and every judicial opinion it seems to get worse. If the Florida legislature cannot write a statute that is understandable in any consistent and logical way by educated people who are trying to understand and follow the law, and workable in the context of the caseloads of Florida's juvenile judges, it should be scrapped entirely and someone should start over.