Opinion
3D23-0568
06-19-2024
City of Miami Beach, Appellant, v. Lisa Boalt Brockhouse, Appellee.
Ricardo J. Dopico, City Attorney for City of Miami Beach, Robert F. Rosenwald, Jr., Chief Deputy City Attorney, and Woody Clermont, Assistant City Attorney; Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Ivy R. Ginsberg, Assistant Attorney General, for appellant. Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Andrew Stanton, Assistant Public Defender, for appellee.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
An Appeal from the County Court for Miami-Dade County, Julie Harris Nelson, Judge. Lower Tribunal No. B22-12546
Ricardo J. Dopico, City Attorney for City of Miami Beach, Robert F. Rosenwald, Jr., Chief Deputy City Attorney, and Woody Clermont, Assistant City Attorney; Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Ivy R. Ginsberg, Assistant Attorney General, for appellant.
Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Andrew Stanton, Assistant Public Defender, for appellee.
Before FERNANDEZ, SCALES and BOKOR, JJ.
BOKOR, J.
On February 7, 2023, the trial court set aside a bench warrant issued against Lisa Boalt Brockhouse for failure to appear at a prior hearing or arraignment. At the same February 7 hearing, the trial court orally set the case for report. The municipal prosecutor for the City of Miami Beach was neither present nor received notice of the trial court's setting the case for report. Recalling the case later in the morning, still with no municipal prosecutor present and still without providing notice to the City, the trial court orally dismissed the case on its own motion, later memorialized in a written order. The City timely appealed. As in City of Miami Beach v. Cosme, 49 Fla.L.Weekly D322 (Fla. 3d DCA Feb. 7, 2024), the trial court's dismissal on its own motion and without notice or opportunity to be heard constituted a fundamental depravation of the City's due process rights. We therefore vacate the dismissal and remand for further proceedings.
Reversed and remanded.