CRIMINAL LAW-IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION STATUTES--REVOCATION OF LICENSE AS PENALTY OR FORFEITURE

Plaintiff, an architect, involuntarily testified as to facts involved in a bribery transaction, before a state attorney, a grand jury, and at the trial of members of the Board of Public Instruction for bribery and conspiracy to bribe. Subsequently the State Board of Architecture filed charges against him seeking to revoke his certificate, basing these charges on the same bribery transaction, in which he allegedly had participated. Plaintiff thereupon instituted suit for declaration of his rights and immunities. He claimed an immunity by virtue of a Florida statute which provided that in connection with certain crimes (including bribery) "no person shall be prosecuted or subjected to any penalty or forfeiture for or on account of any transaction ...

" concerning which he involuntarily testified. The circuit court granted an injunction against the proceeding for revocation, and the Board of Architecture appealed. On appeal, held, affirmed. A proceeding to revoke an architect's certificate falls within the protection of an immunity from prosecution statute.

Florida State Board of Architecture v. Seymour, (Fla. 1952) 62 S. (2d) 1.