India Comer and Shantearia Gaines vs. State of Florida, et al. No. 3D25-1258 (2025)

The Third District Court of Appeals in Florida considered a writ of Habeas Corpus filed by petitioners India Comer and Shantearia Gaines, challenging their detention in an adult correctional center. The Court of Appeals granted the petition and issued the writ, ordering Ms. Comer and Ms. Gaines to be moved to the juvenile detention center.

The Court of Appeals offered the following language in support:

” [T]he Petitioners are seeking to be released from their confinement that does not comply with the statutory requirements
of their detention as minors. Indeed, they are testing the legality of their detention in this specific facility. See State, Dep’t. of Health & Rehab. Servs. v. Stoutamire, 602 So. 2d 564, 567 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992). Florida law dictates how minors must be detained and housed when they are charged as adults:

(5) The court shall order the delivery of a child to a jail or other
facility intended or used for the detention of adults:
(a) When the child has been transferred or indicted for criminal
prosecution as an adult under part X, except that the court
may not order or allow a child alleged to have committed a
misdemeanor who is being transferred for criminal
prosecution pursuant to either s. 985.556 or s. 985.557 to be
detained or held in a jail or other facility intended or used for
the detention of adults; however, such child may be held
temporarily in a detention facility; or
(b) When a child taken into custody in this state is wanted by
another jurisdiction for prosecution as an adult.

The child shall be housed separately from adult inmates to prohibit a child from having regular contact with incarcerated adults, including trusties. “Regular contact” means sight and sound contact. Separation of children from adults shall permit no more than haphazard or accidental contact. The receiving jail or other facility shall contain a separate section for children and shall have an adequate staff to supervise and monitor the child’s activities at all times. Supervision and monitoring of children includes physical observation and documented checks by jail or receiving facility supervisory personnel at intervals not to exceed 10 minutes. This subsection does not prohibit placing two or more children in the same cell. Under no circumstances shall a child be placed in the same cell with an adult. § 985.265(5), Fla. Stat.7 This guarantees minors the liberty not to be housed alongside adults and not to have regular contact with adults.

But the location and the way the Petitioners are housed falls short of ensuring this liberty. It forces them to have regular contact—both sight and sound contact—with adult inmates. This contact is not accidental or haphazard. This is prohibited by section 985.265(5), Florida Statutes. To this end, the Petitioners’ detention is unlawful. Their statutory rights—and importantly, their liberties—are being deprived. See Bolyea, 520 So. 2d at 564.

While Courts cannot micromanage the facility to demand certain condition changes, it can ensure that the statutory rights of minors are met. Minors must be detained and housed in accordance with Florida law. Those requirements are set forth by the plain language of section 985.265, Florida Statutes. Our constitutional guaranties of liberty are merely empty words unless a person imprisoned or detained may challenge the legality of detention.”