Suspended License

The issue of whether you can be charged with both misdemeanor driving while license suspended in violation of section 322.34(2) and felony driving while license suspended in violation of section 322.34(5).  This issue was addressed in Pedro Gil v. State of Florida, No. SC11-1983 (July 11, 2013).
 
On October 6, 2009, Pedro Gil was stopped in Miami-Dade County for speeding. Gil informed the officer that his driver’s license was suspended, and Gil was then arrested. For purposes of this case, the arrest report listed the following charges: driving with a suspended license (DWLS), in violation of section 322.34. 
On October 27, 2009, Gil pled nolo contendere to the misdemeanor DWLS charge in a county court and was adjudged guilty of this charge. Gil was sentenced to six months’ probation and two hundred hours of community service, plus the payment of $358. On the same day, the State Attorney for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit filed an information that charged Gil with a violation of the felony HTO statute. Gil subsequently filed a motion to dismiss the information on the basis that it violated Florida’s double jeopardy statute.  The circuit court granted Gil’s motion to dismiss the felony information. On appeal, the Third District reversed the dismissal of the information. Gil, 68 So. 3d at 1003. While acknowledging that the HTO provision, codified in section 322.34(5), appears to be a degree variant of the DWLS provision, codified in section 322.34(2), the Third District nonetheless stated: Subsection (5) is not a degree variant of subsection (2) because: subsection (2) punishes for driving with a canceled or revoked license, whereas subsection (5) only punishes for driving with a revoked license.  The Third District ultimately held that “because suspension or revocation under subsection (2) of section 322.34 is based on entirely different conduct and on a completely different criteria than a revocation under subsection (5), subsection (5) cannot be a degree variant of subsection (2), and therefore convictions for violating subsection (2) and subsection (5) do not constitute double jeopardy. 
However, double jeopardy may still attach if subsections 322.34(2) and 322.34(5) satisfy one of the exceptions provided under subsection 775.021(4)(b). As previously discussed, the DWLS and HTO provisions do not require identical elements of proof. Further, driving with a suspended license is not a lesser included offense of unlawful driving as a habitual traffic offender. Instead, the dispositive issue is whether the DWLS offense and the HTO offense are “degrees of the same offense” under subsection (4)(b)(2).  Applying the test articulated in Valdes, the Florida Supreme Court concluded that sections 322.34(2) and 322.34(5) qualify as variant offenses under section 775.021(4)(b)(2) and double jeopardy precludes the prosecution of Gil under the HTO provision in light of his prior conviction under the DWLS provision based on the same facts.  www.zlawfirmfl.com
 
 
 
 
Location: 501 North Magnolia Avenue, Orlando, FL 32801, USA

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