Title: Brewer v. State

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

386 So. 2d 232 (1980)
Patrick Anthony BREWER, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 54578.

Supreme Court of Florida.
May 22, 1980.
Rehearing Denied July 30, 1980.
*233 Margaret Good, Asst. Public Defender, Tallahassee, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Wallace E. Allbritton, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.
PER CURIAM.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court of the Fourth Judicial Circuit, in and for Clay County, in which the court adjudicated the appellant guilty of murder in the first degree and followed the jury recommendation in sentencing him to death. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.
On February 15, 1978, at approximately 7:30 A.M., the body of Mrs. Tsuyako Thomas was discovered on the floor behind the counter in her restaurant. She had been stabbed to death. A knife later identified as belonging to the appellant was found underneath the body. The appellant's cap was also found at the scene. Shoe track impressions taken from an area to the rear of the restaurant showed similarity to the appellant's boots. Traces of blood found on the appellant's boots were of the same blood type as the victim.
On February 18, 1978, police officers arrested the appellant. They advised him of his rights in the standard fashion. The appellant told them that he was present at and witnessed the stabbing and that he knew the attacker but only by first name. He said that he struggled with the assailant briefly, then fled the scene in fear.
After further interrogation, the appellant made statements of an incriminating nature. The interrogation and the statements were tape-recorded. Later that day he was taken before a county court judge for first appearance. The judge advised the appellant of his rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present during questioning. Subsequent to the appearance before the judge, the appellant signed a written confession.
Before trial, the appellant moved to suppress both his initial oral incriminating statements and his written confession. At a hearing on the motions, the court heard the tape of appellant's interrogation.
The officers raised the spectre of the electric chair, suggested that they had the power to effect leniency, and suggested to the appellant that he would not be given a fair trial. It was under the influence of these threats and promises that the appellant made an oral confession. The appellant's motion to suppress his oral statements made before his first appearance was granted.
Following the initial interrogation which lasted about two hours, the appellant had his first appearance before a county court judge. He was in the presence of the judge for approximately fifteen minutes. He was advised of his rights. The judge became aware that the appellant had made a statement but he was not informed of the nature of the statement. The judge was not informed of the threats and promises that produced the statement. He did not inform the appellant that the initial statements could not be used against him.
After first appearance, the appellant went back into the custody of the same officers who performed the initial, tape-recorded interrogation. They told him they wanted a written statement of what he had confessed to them earlier. The appellant wrote out a confession and signed it. The written confession was admitted into evidence over the appellant's objection.
The appellant contends, among other matters, that the trial court committed reversible error in denying his motion to suppress his written confession. He argues that the statement should have been excluded because it was the product of the same clearly established coercive influences that rendered his oral statements inadmissible.
In order for a confession or an incriminating statement of a defendant to be admissible in evidence, it must be shown that the confession or statement was voluntarily made. Coffee v. State, 25 Fla. 501, 6 So. 493 (1889). The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the states from using the coerced confession of an accused against him. Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 56 S. Ct. 461, 80 L. Ed. 682 (1936). In a state prosecution, the standard by which the voluntariness of a confession is to be determined is the same as that which applies to federal prosecutions under the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S. Ct. 1489, 12 L. Ed. 2d 653 (1964).
Under that standard, when a question arises as to the voluntariness of a confession, the inquiry is whether the confession was "free and voluntary; that is [it] must not be extracted by any sort of threats or violence, nor obtained by any direct or implied promises, however slight, nor by the exertion of any improper influence... ." Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 542-43, 18 S. Ct. 183, 187, 42 L. Ed. 568 (1897). For a confession to be admissible as voluntary, it is required
Frazier v. State, 107 So. 2d 16, 21 (Fla. 1958); Harrison v. State, 152 Fla. 86, 12 So. 2d 307 (Fla. 1943).
The appellant's initial statement was coerced and was properly excluded by the trial court. The appellant contends that the written confession should have been suppressed also, on the ground that there were no intervening facts or circumstances sufficient to break the stream of events and insulate the written confession from the coercive influences that produced the earlier statement.
The burden of showing that the appellant's written statement was voluntarily made was on the state. Lawton v. State, 152 Fla. 821, 13 So. 2d 211 (Fla. 1943). The state was required to establish voluntariness by a preponderance of the evidence. Wilson v. State, 304 So. 2d 119 (Fla. 1974); McDole v. State, 283 So. 2d 553 (Fla. 1973).
Once it is established that there were coercive influences attendant upon an initial confession, the coercion is presumed to continue "unless clearly shown to have been removed prior to a subsequent confession." State v. Outten, 206 So. 2d 392, 396 (Fla. 1968). The inquiry is whether, under the circumstances, the influence of the coercion that produced the first confession was dissipated so that the second confession was the voluntary act of a free will. See, e.g., Darwin v. Connecticut, 391 U.S. 346, 88 S. Ct. 1488, 20 L. Ed. 2d 630 (1968); Leyra v. Denno, 347 U.S. 556, 74 S. Ct. 716, 98 L. Ed. 948 (1953); United States v. Bayer, 331 U.S. 532, 67 S. Ct. 1394, 91 L. Ed. 1654 (1947); Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U.S. 596, 64 S. Ct. 1208, 88 L. Ed. 1481 (1943).
The state contends that the trial court was correct in holding that the intervening appearance before a judicial officer, who gave a rights advisory, was sufficient to dissipate the coercive influences and render the subsequent written confession voluntary.
In Lyons v. Oklahoma, an initial confession was improperly obtained by coercion. A second confession was held to be freely given and admissible. In addition to an intervening warning of constitutional rights, the following circumstances, in contrast to the instant case, were present: twelve hours elapsed from the time of the first statement to the time of the second; the second statement was given in response to questioning by an authority different from the one that exerted the improper influence; and the persons who applied the coercion were not present at the time of the second statement.
The trial court, in the instant case, in holding that the coercion did not affect the voluntariness of the written statement, cited State v. Oyarzo, 274 So. 2d 519 (Fla. 1973); State v. Holt, 354 So. 2d 888 (Fla. 4th DCA 1978); and Jetmore v. State, 275 So. 2d 61 (Fla. 4th DCA 1973).
In State v. Oyarzo, the question was whether a second and proper rights advisory was sufficient to dissipate the improper influence that accompanied the first rights advisory given upon arrest. There was no question of two separate statements. The issue was whether the defendant's statement was unaffected by the improper influence created when the arresting officer pretended to be a friend and protector, deluding the defendant as to his true position. We held that the second warning dissipated the coercive influence so that the statement was admissible. The threats and direct promises of leniency shown to have existed in the present case were much more intense and pervasive than the single comment made in Oyarzo.
In State v. Holt, the suspect being interrogated made an incriminating statement without having received Miranda warnings. He repeated the statement later following proper warnings. The appellate court cited Rhome v. State, 222 So. 2d 431 (Fla. 3d DCA 1969), for the rule that:
State v. Holt, 354 So. 2d  at 890. In Holt, the impropriety accompanying the first statement was the omission to advise the suspect of his rights. Thus a proper warning was enough to overcome the impropriety associated with the earlier statement. In the case at bar the impropriety consisted of actual threats, promises of leniency, and statements calculated to delude the appellant as to his true position.
Jetmore v. State, 275 So. 2d 61 (Fla. 4th DCA 1973), concerned the question whether the primary taint of an illegal arrest and search rendered inadmissible a subsequent confession made after proper warnings. The statement was held to have been properly admitted on the ground there was sufficient evidence for the conclusion that the confession was voluntary and not affected by the illegality of the arrest and search. The question whether proper warnings have purged the taint of an illegal arrest is different from the question whether actual coercion continues to operate despite warnings.
Upon examining the totality of the circumstances surrounding the confession, we conclude that the intervention of appearance before a judicial officer was not sufficient to break the stream of events and dissipate the coercive influences exerted on the appellant. The trial court erred, therefore, in ruling that the written confession was voluntary. This error requires reversal and a new trial.
The judgment and sentence are vacated. The decision of the court below is reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.
It is so ordered.
ENGLAND, C.J., BOYD, OVERTON, SUNDBERG and ALDERMAN, JJ., and VANN, Associate Justice, concur.
ADKINS, J., dissents.