Case ID: so2d_326/html/0023-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM. MAGER, Judge", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Aaron HEATON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
    No. 75-481.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
    Jan. 30, 1976.
    Edward M. Kay of Varón, Stahl & Kay, Hollywood, for appellant.
    Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and C. Marie Bernard, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellee.
   PER CURIAM.

Affirmed.

OWEN and DOWNEY, JJ., concur.

MAGER, J., dissents, with opinion.

MAGER, Judge

(dissenting):

It appears to me from a reading of the recent decisions in Jarriel v. State, Fla.App. 4th 1975, 317 So.2d 141, and M.D.B. v. State, Fla.App. 4th 1975, 311 So.2d 399, that the defendant’s confession was not “free from the influence of either hope or fear”; in particular, the interrogating officer’s suggestion, however slight, that the defendant’s truthful statements would help defendant’s wife who was then in custody, constituted a form of subtle coercion found by the courts to be impermissible thereby rendering defendant’s confession involuntary and requiring its suppression. In my opinion the court erred in admitting these statements into evidence and accordingly the judgment of conviction and sentence should be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.