IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA FIFTH DISTRICT

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellant, v. Case No. 5D18-683

RONALD GRATE AND CHARLES MORTON, Appellees. ________________________________/

Opinion filed July 27, 2018

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Brevard County, Charles J. Roberts, George T. Paulk and Jeffrey F. Mahl, Judges.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Rebecca R. McGuigan, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.

James S. Purdy, Public Defender, and Nancy Ryan, Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellees.

ORFINGER, J.

The State of Florida appeals the circuit court’s order denying its petition for a writ of quo warranto, challenging the Office of Public Defender’s authority to intervene in civil traffic infraction cases.1 We treat this matter as a direct appeal, reverse the circuit court’s order, and remand with instructions to grant the petition.

district courts of appeal may be sought to review . . . final orders of circuit courts acting in their review capacity.”); Sutton v. State, 975 So. 2d 1073 (Fla. 2008) (holding prohibition used in circuit court to review disqualification order by county court was reviewable by certiorari); Sheley v. Fla. Parole Comm’n, 720 So. 2d 216 (Fla. 1998) (holding that mandamus used in circuit court to review decision by parole commission was reviewable by certiorari). However, when a petition for extraordinary relief initiates a new civil action in the circuit court and is not used as a method of reviewing an order of the county court or a local administrative tribunal, the final order is reviewed by appeal. See, e.g., Fla. R.

App. P. 9.030(b)(1)(A) (“District courts of appeal shall review, by appeal . . . final orders

of trial courts . . . .”); Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.630 (rule governing extraordinary writs); City of Miami Beach v. State ex rel. Wood, 56 So. 2d 520, 520 (Fla. 1952) (appeal from judgment entered in quo warranto proceedings); Brock v. Bd. of Cty. Comm’rs of Collier Cty., 21

So. 3d 844, 845-46 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009) (reviewing clerk’s appeal from circuit court’s granting of quo warranto). Here, because the petition was a new civil action in the circuit court and was not appellate in nature, our review is by appeal.

Turning to the merits, we consider this a matter of statutory construction subject to

de novo review. Citizens Prop. Ins. Corp. v. Perdido Sun Condo. Ass’n, 164 So. 3d 663, 666 (Fla. 2015). “The starting point of statutory interpretation is the language of the statute itself.” Herrin v. City of Deltona, 121 So. 3d 1094, 1097 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013) (citing

GTC, Inc. v. Edgar, 967 So. 2d 781, 785 (Fla. 2007)). “If statutory language is clear and unambiguous, ‘there is no occasion for resorting to the rules of statutory interpretation and construction; the statute must be given its plain and obvious meaning.’” Id. (quoting

A. R. Douglass, Inc. v. McRainey, 137 So. 157, 159 (Fla. 1931)).

The Office of Public Defender was initially created in this state by statute, and later by an express constitutional provision, to provide indigent defendants the right of counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Article V, section 18 of the Florida Constitution provides that the Office of Public Defender “shall perform duties prescribed by general law.” This provision grants the Legislature the authority to delineate the duties to be performed by public defenders, including the types of cases for which public defenders can be appointed. Crist v. Fla. Ass’n of Criminal Def. Lawyers, Inc., 978 So. 2d 134, 141

(Fla. 2008). Section 27.51, Florida Statutes (2018), defines the duties of the Office of Public Defender and generally provides that public defenders shall represent indigents

who have been charged or arrested for a variety of criminal offenses that could result in imprisonment and in a limited number of civil proceedings that threaten their liberty interests, as well as in all indigent criminal direct appeals. See, e.g., State ex rel. Smith v. Jorandby, 498 So. 2d 948, 950 (Fla. 1986) (holding section 27.51 permits representation by public defender only in circumstances entailing prosecution by state threatening indigent’s liberty interest, including appeals). Thus, the duties of public defenders, as enumerated in section 27.51, include representation of indigent defendants only in circumstances that threaten liberty interests, which do not include civil traffic

infraction proceedings. Accord § 924.051(9), Fla. Stat. (2018) (“Funds, resources, or employees of this state or its political subdivisions may not be used, directly or indirectly, in appellate or collateral proceedings unless the use is constitutionally or statutorily mandated.”).

Despite the lack of statutory authority, it is argued that the Office of Public Defender can collaterally attack its client’s prior civil traffic infraction adjudication, if, in the exercise

354 of its professional judgment, it concludes such representation is necessary to provide effective and complete representation. We reject that argument, as the court did in Mann

v. State, 937 So. 2d 722, 726-29 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006), which concluded that while the public defender’s desire to continue to assist criminal defendants, even after their

convictions have become final after appeal and the public defender’s statutory duty and authority has terminated, is admirable, to do so would violate Florida’s statutory scheme and deny all other similarly situated defendants desirous of representation in collateral proceedings equal protection under the constitutions of the State of Florida and the United

States. Though not precisely on point, we find further support for our position in the Florida Supreme Court’s holding in State v. Kilgore, 976 So. 2d 1066 (Fla. 2007), that the Office of Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, an office similar to the Office of Public

Defender, could not represent a capital defendant in challenging a prior non-capital

conviction that the prosecution intended to use as an aggravating circumstance in the capital case. Certainly, if publicly funded counsel cannot collaterally attack a prior conviction in a death penalty case, we have no difficulty in concluding that the Office of Public Defender cannot collaterally attack a prior civil traffic infraction conviction.

For these reasons, the circuit court should have granted the State’s petition for quo warranto. Accordingly, we reverse the circuit court order and remand with instructions to grant the petition.

REVERSED and REMANDED with instructions.

WALLIS and LAMBERT, JJ., concur.