Carawan v. State
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
The 1988 amendment to section 775.021(4) prospectively displaced Carawan's lenity-based multiple-punishment analysis; the Florida Supreme Court preserved its application to earlier offenses. The court also refused to apply Carawan retroactively through a postconviction motion. Because those three remain unread, the review is not complete and no full good-law assessment is possible.
475 later cases cite Carawan v. State; 73 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading; 70 of them have been read, and the text of 3 citing opinions could not be retrieved, so those remain unread. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.
Relying on Carawan v. State?
This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.
Treatments
Superseded by statute
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The Florida Supreme Court held that the 1988 amendment to section 775.021(4) overrode Carawan for offenses committed after the amendment took effect, while Carawan continued to govern earlier offenses.
State v. Smith · Supreme Court of Florida · filed
In summary, we hold that Carawan has been overridden for offenses that occur after the effective date of chapter 88-131, section 7, but the override will not be retroactively applied.
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The First District held that the 1988 amendment to section 775.021 limits the Carawan rule of lenity when there is no evidence of legislative intent, while leaving intact analysis of intent evident in the substantive statute.
Wheeler v. State · District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District · filed
The 1988 legislature, apparently in response to Carawan, amended section 775.021 by adding subsection (4)(b), which states that "the intent of the legislature is to convict and sentence for each criminal offense committed in the course of one criminal episode or transaction and not to allow the rule of lenity ... to determine legislative intent" unless the offenses require identical elements of proof, are degrees of the same offense or are lesser included offenses. Chapter 88-131, section 7, Laws of Florida. This amendment limits application of the rule of lenity when there is no evidence of legislative intent, but does not affect analysis of the legislative intent as evidenced by the statute itself.
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The First District held that the amended statute, rather than Carawan, governed offenses committed after the amendment's effective date.
Brown v. State · District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District · filed
Since the crime in question occurred after the effective date of ch. 88-131, § 7, Laws of Fla., the instant case is controlled by that statutory provision rather than Carawan v. State, 515 So.2d 161 (Fla. 1987).
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The Third District held that amendments to section 775.021(4) displaced Carawan for offenses committed after their effective date and therefore did not bar the separate convictions.
Gidden v. State · District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District · filed
Carawan v. State, 515 So.2d 161 (Fla. 1987), does not preclude separate convictions because the offenses in this case were committed after the amendments to section 775.021(4), Florida Statutes (1989), became effective. Those amendments overruled Carawan for offenses that occurred subsequent to the effective date of section 775.021(4), as amended. State v. Smith, 547 So.2d 613, 617 (Fla. 1989).
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The First District held that the 1988 amendment to section 775.021(4) displaced Carawan for post-amendment offenses and permitted separate convictions and sentences for armed robbery and aggravated battery.
Cave v. State · District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District · filed
Hall v. State, 549 So.2d 758 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989), is not authority for the result urged by the appellant because Hall was also governed by Carawan v. State, 515 So.2d 161 (Fla. 1987), which, as noted above, was overruled by section 775.021(4), Florida Statutes (1988 Supp.). State v. Smith, supra.
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The Florida Supreme Court held that the 1988 amendment to section 775.021(4) displaced Carawan’s lenity-based restriction on multiple convictions for offenses arising from the same transaction.
State v. Johnson · Supreme Court of Florida · filed
In Carawan v. State, 515 So.2d 161 (Fla. 1987), we held that in applying the rule of lenity to construe legislative intent there would be some circumstances under which the defendant could not be convicted of two crimes arising out of the same transaction even though each contained an element not contained in the other. The purpose of chapter 88-131 was to overrule our opinion in Carawan. As amended, section 775.021(4) makes it clear that a defendant may be convicted of two or more criminal offenses arising out of the same transaction as long as each criminal offense contains at least one separate element.
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The Florida Supreme Court held that the 1988 amendment to section 775.021(4) was intended to override Carawan's rule of lenity for multiple punishments.
State v. Chapman · Supreme Court of Florida · filed
We see nothing more in the 1988 amendment than that it was intended to limit the rule of lenity and to override Carawan v. State, 515 So.2d 161 (Fla. 1987).
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The Fifth District held that the adoption of section 775.021(4)(b) displaced Carawan's analysis and required separate convictions and sentences for the charged offenses.
Gordon v. State · District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District · filed
We reject Defendant's subsumption argument. The charges are not different degrees of the same core underlying offense. Rather, they are aimed at two different evils: the Legislature has chosen to separately punish attempts to kill and the act of physically injuring someone.[8]See *1115 Carawan v. State, 515 So.2d 161 (Fla.1987) (Shaw, J., dissenting) (disagreeing with the majority position that aggravated battery and attempted homicide address the same evil and cannot thus be punished separately).[9] The subsequent "overruling" of Carawan's analysis by the adoption of paragraph 775.021(4)(b) supports our conclusion that the imposition of convictions and sentences on all four counts is required.
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The Florida Supreme Court held that the amendment to section 775.021 displaced Carawan’s legislative-intent and lenity analysis for the multiple-conviction question before it.
Gordon v. State · Supreme Court of Florida · filed
In light of the subsequent statutory amendment explicitly setting forth the Legislature's intent, the Carawan and Boivin decisions cannot be said to control the instant case. Those decisions were explicitly based on our interpretation of legislative intent, an interpretation expressly rejected by the Legislature.
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The Third District held that the amendment to section 775.021(4) displaced Carawan's lenity-based multiple-punishment analysis and, on that basis, deemed its earlier Carawan-reliant Wilcher decision invalid.
Valdes v. State · District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District · filed
We, therefore, note that, because the Florida Legislature amended section 775.021(4), and Carawan no longer has validity, Wilcher, which was decided prior to the amendment of the statute and which relied upon Carawan, also has no validity.
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Limited
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The Florida Supreme Court held that Carawan was an evolutionary refinement of decisional law and refused to apply it retroactively through a postconviction motion under rule 3.850.
State v. Glenn · Supreme Court of Florida · filed
Therefore, in the interests of decisional finality, and in light of Smith, we find Carawan to be merely an evolutionary refinement of decisional law and, accordingly, refuse to permit its retroactive application through a motion for postconviction relief under rule 3.850.
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