Florida Supreme Court May Take Up Constitutionality of State's Drug Law
The Florida Supreme Court may soon address the constitutionality of the state’s drug law.
On Wednesday, the St. Petersburg Times reports, a Florida appeals court issued an order asking the state’s high court to decide whether the law violates the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
It was only about the dozenth time in the past 31 years that an appeals court deemed an issue so important that it sent a case directly to the supreme court and requested an immediate ruling. The order was in response to a recent ruling by a Tampa-area judge who earlier this month declared the law unconstitutional.
“Until this important constitutional question is resolved by the Florida Supreme Court, prosecutions for drug offenses will be subject to great uncertainty throughout Florida,” the appeals court wrote in its order. “It will be difficult to reach a final resolution in many of these cases until the issue is resolved.”
To win a conviction under the drug laws of other states, a prosecutor has to convince a jury that the defendant knew he owned or sold an illegal substance. But in 2002, Florida became the only state in the country to do away with this so-called knowledge requirement, allowing defendants to be convicted of selling or possessing illegal drugs even if they didn’t know what they had was illegal. Defense lawyers contend that that stipulation makes the statute unlawful. And at least three Florida judges have now agreed with them.
If the court strikes down the statute, the ruling would likely affect thousands of convictions and exonerate hundreds of people recently charged with drug crimes. According to the Florida Department of Corrections, nearly 94,000 people have been sent to prison for drug-related offenses since the start of 2002.
