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• Sawyers v. State 430 So. 3d 1007 (Fla. 2d DCA 2026) The defendant was convicted of aggravated battery with a firearm and sentenced to a 25-year mandatory minimum. On appeal he argued that the information was defective because it did not allege that great bodily harm was inflicted "as the result of" the discharge of the firearm, the causation language that triggers the enhancement under section 775.087(2)(a)3. The Second District Court of Appeal, Judge Labrit writing, held:
  • Substantive defects in a charging document, such as omitting an essential element of the crime, may be raised for the first time on appeal, but technical defects must be preserved by contemporaneous objection;
  • The omitted causation phrase related only to the sentencing enhancement, not to an element of the substantive offense, so the defect was technical at most and was not preserved; and
  • Because the defendant was told repeatedly, on the record, that the 25-year mandatory minimum would apply, he was not deprived of notice and the defect was not fundamental error.
  Affirmed, conflict certified. Judge Rothstein-Youakim concurred specially; Judge Silberman concurred in result only.
• State v. Young 408 So. 3d 140 (Fla. 2d DCA 2025) The State appealed an order excluding the defendant's confession in a sexual-battery prosecution. The court affirmed per curiam on the authority of State v. Tumlinson, 224 So. 3d 766 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016). Judge Labrit, joined by Judge Smith, concurred separately to explain:
  • Section 92.565 replaces the traditional corpus delicti rule with a trustworthiness test and sets out a four-step process: confirm the offense qualifies, confirm the State cannot prove an element because of the victim's disability, determine whether the State has proven the confession trustworthy by a preponderance of corroborating evidence, and make specific findings on the record;
  • The statute expressly allows the trial court to consider hearsay and the defendant's own statements as corroboration; and
  • Tumlinson misapplied the statute by requiring corroboration independent of the confession, a requirement not found in the text, and the concurrence invited the court to revisit it.
• State v. Crose 378 So. 3d 1217 (Fla. 2d DCA 2024) (en banc) The defendant was charged with failure of a sex offender to report an electronic mail address or instant message name. The Circuit Court, 12th Judicial Circuit, Sarasota County, Donna M. Padar, J., granted the defendant's motion to dismiss, and, upon rehearing, entered an amended order granting the motion to dismiss to add additional reasoning for dismissal. The State appealed, and the District Court of Appeal, on its own motion, voted to proceed en banc. The Second District Court of Appeal of Florida held:
  • Consulting subsequent legislative amendments in response to recent controversies is not a viable basis for construing the meaning of a statute; receding from Hull v. State, 349 So. 3d 459, and Madison at Soho II Condominium Association, Inc. v. Devo Acquisition Enterprises, LLC, 198 So. 3d 1111;
  • In the previously effective version of the statute defining sexual offender as, in part, a person released from the sanction imposed, "the sanction imposed" means the particularized penalty exacted by the authority of a criminal court; and
  • The defendant, who was still completing the probation portion of his criminal sanction, was not a "sexual offender" under the operative, pre-amendment version of the statute.
• Tracey v. Wells Fargo 264 So. 3d 1152 (Fla. 2d DCA 2019) The mortgagee filed a foreclosure action against the mortgagor. The Circuit Court, Pinellas County, Karl B. Grube, J., entered judgment foreclosing the mortgage. The mortgagor appealed. The Second District Court of Appeal of Florida held:
  • The mortgagor suffered prejudice when the trial court permitted the mortgagee to amend its complaint to conform with the evidence;
  • Remand with directions to involuntarily dismiss the mortgagee's amended complaint was the appropriate remedy; and
  • The District Court of Appeal had discretion to exercise equitable discretion to consider the circumstances of the particular case in fashioning the scope of remand.
• Phan v. Deutsche Bank Nat'l Trust Co. 198 So. 3d 744 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016) The mortgagee initiated a foreclosure action against the mortgagor. As an affirmative defense, the mortgagor argued that the mortgagee did not have standing at the time it filed the action. The Circuit Court, Pinellas County, Ray E. Ulmer, Jr., J., entered judgment in favor of the mortgagee. The mortgagor appealed. The Second District Court of Appeal of Florida held:
  • As a matter of first impression, where an agent holds a mortgage note on behalf of its principal, the principal has constructive possession of the note and standing to file a complaint for foreclosure as a holder; and
  • The evidence supported the finding that the authorized servicer of the mortgagor's loan was the mortgagee's agent at the time the mortgagee filed the foreclosure complaint.