Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

526 So. 2d 63

Docket No. 71765.

State v. Potts

STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Willie POTTS, Jr., Appellee.

Supreme Court of Florida

Decided June 2, 1988.

Rehearing Dismissed August 31, 1988.

Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1988-08-31

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The state through its criminal process may not penalize someone merely for the status of being under indictment or otherwise accused of a crime, as it has attempted to do here. We therefore approve and adopt the district court's opinion in its entirety as our own. Section 790.07(2), Florida Statutes (1985), is facially unconstitutional to the extent it purports to penalize a person who is under indictment with greater severity than one who is accused of no crime.”

quoted by 3 later decisions, including Seays v. State, 543 So. 2d 1205 - In Re Stan. Jury Instr. in Criminal Cases

Relies on Potts v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1988-08-31

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently March 2014

16 state decisions

1001988199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Lee Rosenthal and John W. Tiedemann, Asst. Attys. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellant.

¶2Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender and Ellen Morris, Asst. Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

¶3BARKETT, Justice.

¶4We have on appeal Potts v. State,526 So.2d 104 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987), which declared unconstitutional a portion of section 790.07(2), Florida Statutes (1985). Jurisdiction is mandatory. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.

¶5Having reviewed the entire record in this case, we have determined that the district court's decision below is an eminently correct statement of the law. The state through its criminal process may not penalize someone merely for the status of being under indictment or otherwise accused of a crime, as it has attempted to do here. We therefore approve and adopt the district court's opinion in its entirety as our own. Section 790.07(2), Florida Statutes (1985), is facially unconstitutional to the extent it purports to penalize a person who is under indictment with greater severity than one who is accused of no crime.

¶6It is so ordered.

¶7McDONALD, C.J., and OVERTON, EHRLICH, SHAW, GRIMES and KOGAN, JJ., concur.

/526/so2d/63 · .json · Public domain