Title: Knight v. State

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

97 So. 2d 115 (1957)
Albert KNIGHT, Appellant,
v.
The STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Florida.
September 25, 1957.
*116 V.R. Fisher, Tampa, for appellant.
Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., Jos. P. Manners and David U. Tumin, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.
STURGIS, District Judge.
A jury found appellant, defendant below, guilty of incest committed upon the person of his daughter, a minor, whose testimony was not corroborated. The Criminal Court of Record in and for Hillsborough County (Grayson, J.) sentenced him to fifteen years in the state penitentiary. This appeal is from that judgment.
The prosecutrix claimed that her father committed the incestuous acts over a sixteen month period, except for a five month interval during which she lived in a Salvation Army home while pregnant and following delivery of a child admittedly sired by one other than her father. She was rigidly cross examined in respect to her mental condition and actions prior to, during and following the alleged incestuous acts. In an effort to develop an inference of animosity toward her father, she was asked if she had at a time prior to the alleged crime made representations to the effect that her father murdered her twin brother, and she denied doing so. To impeach this testimony and show animosity of the prosecutrix toward her father, the defense proffered testimony of two witnesses to the effect that she did make such representations. The refusal of the court to permit this testimony to go to the jury is assigned as error.
Several weeks after prosecutrix lodged the complaint she was committed to the Florida Industrial School for Girls at Ocala, where she developed a mental disorder resulting in transfer to a Tampa hospital for treatment, from which she was discharged on September 15, 1954 and returned to the Industrial School. The disorder recurred and on October 11 she was again placed in the Tampa hospital for treatment, from which she was discharged on November 1 and returned to the Industrial School. She promptly became violent, was adjudged insane, and on November 5 was committed to the state hospital for the insane at Chattahoochee, from which she was discharged the latter part of January 1955, approximately two weeks before the trial.
As part of its evidence in chief the state produced Mr. Forrest Orr, a psychologist in its employ at the Chattahoochee hospital. He was permitted to testify that while prosecutrix was a patient there he gave her certain tests resulting in a finding that her intelligence was in the high average to superior range. On cross examination he testified that he found her to be a person in great need of personal attention, and in the course of further cross examination the state's objections were sustained to each of the following questions:
These rulings were assigned as error.
As further evidence in chief the state produced Dr. Marshall C. Sexton, a psychiatrist in the employ of the state hospital, who over objection of the defense was permitted to testify that while the prosecutrix was a patient in the state hospital she complained to him of an incestuous relationship with her father; and over objection the doctor also testified that he injected her with sodium amytal, a drug commonly known as "truth serum", having the propensity of making a person "more likely to tell the truth", with the result that while under its effect she reiterated the complaint. Appellant insists that his assignment of error No. 20 presents for review the question of the competency of this evidence. The state pertinently argues that the assignment of error is distinguished more in the breach than in the observance of the rule prescribing the contents of assignments of error. See Johnston v. State, 29 Fla. 558, 10 So. 686; Berger v. E. Berger & Co., 76 Fla. 503, 80 So. 296; Kloss v. State, 95 Fla. 433, 116 So. 39; Dewey v. State, 135 Fla. 443, 186 So. 224; Mortellaro v. State, Fla., 72 So. 2d 815; Redditt v. State, Fla., 84 So. 2d 317. It is only because the fundamental rights of the individual are so seriously affected by this phase of the proceedings below that we are constrained to ignore appellant's failure to comply strictly with the rule. This relaxation must not be interpreted as license or invitation for future violations of it.
Conviction of incest may be sustained upon the uncorroborated testimony of the prosecutrix. Mercer v. State, 83 Fla. 555, 92 So. 535. The implications of this principle make it imperative, however, that the accused be accorded every right designed by law to protect the liberties with which the citizen is clothed.
There is no direct precedent of this court relating to admissibility of testimony as to findings based on so-called truth serum tests. In the related case of Kaminski v. State, Fla., 63 So. 2d 339, 340, decided November 14, 1952, the trial court was held in error for permitting a state witness merely to testify that he had taken a lie detector test, and absent any testimony as to the results of such test.
We find no authority recognizing either of such tests to the extent that would justify the courts in admitting testimony reflecting the results in rehabilitation or corroboration of a witness. In the case on review, as in Kaminski v. State, supra, the only purpose of the testimony elicited from the psychiatrist and psychologist was to rehabilitate the credibility of the prosecutrix. The state's whole case depended upon her testimony and its credibility was subject to determination exclusively in the discretion of the jury. As stated in the Kaminski case:
Every postulate from this quotation has greater significance and applies with greater force in this cause. The expert witnesses were permitted not only to show that the so-called credibility tests were given the prosecutrix but gave their interpretation of the results as well. There is no scientifically recognized drug that inevitably causes its subject to speak the truth. The so-called "truth serums", including hyoscine hydrobromide, sodium amytal, evipan sodium, nembutal, scopolaimine, and sodium pentothal, are said to effect states of altered consciousness, so that the subject's ability to associate thoughts and give them inhibited expression is impaired; but no such drug insures pure truth. It is said to produce merely an uninhibited state of mind in which the subject is prone to relate facts not deliberately altered. In 5 University of Florida Law Review 6 (1952) it is said:
In State v. Hudson, Mo. 1926, 289 S.W. 920, 921, which appears to be the first American case to consider such drugs, the court observed:
The term "truth serum" is a misnomer. There is no specific serum which will cure or reveal deception or infallibly induce truth. While scientific developments confound the most skeptical, the fundamental rights of the individual should not be jeopardized by precipitate acceptance of devices that smack too closely of brainwashing. We agree with State v. Lindemuth, 1952, 56 N.M. 257, 243 P.2d 325, 336, in which it is said:
The view we adhere to was followed in the recent case of Lindsey v. United States, 9 Cir., 237 F.2d 893, 895, decided May 7, 1956, in which the trial court was reversed for having permitted the government to attempt to rehabilitate the prosecutrix who was chief witness for the government in a prosecution for statutory rape and sodomy. To accomplish that end the government called a psychiatrist who was permitted to testify, on the basis of a complete clinical examination including batteries of psychological and personal tests and a sodium pentothal test, that in his professional opinion the girl was telling the truth when she repeated on direct examination the charges originally made by her. The court said:
This observation is equally applicable to the case on review.
The psychologist, Mr. Orr, having been allowed to testify, the right of cross examination should not have been restricted by refusing to permit him to answer the questions hereinbefore quoted in regard to the findings and the report thereon as made by the witness. Cross examination of a witness upon the subjects covered in his direct examination is an invaluable right which stems from the constitutional right of the accused to be confronted by his accusers. Coco v. State, Fla., 62 So. 2d 892.
The use of the psychologist and the psychiatrist, for the sole purpose of shoring up the testimony of the chief witness for the prosecution, is hardly distinguishable from trial by compurgation,  the test based on who "gits thar firstest with the mostest." Justice is not at war with the citizen.
For the reasons stated, the judgment appealed from is reversed and a new trial awarded.
*120 TERRELL, C.J., and HOBSON and DREW, JJ., concur.
THORNAL, J., concurs with opinion.
THORNAL, Justice (concurring).
I concur in reversal for the reasons so cogently expressed in the opinion prepared by Mr. Associate Justice STURGIS. My own conclusion, however, is influenced by the additional fact that the brief of the Attorney General for the State concedes that the testimony relating to truth serum tests would not have been held admissible by the courts of any state. A verbatim quotation from the brief of the appellee is the following:
While we are requested to view the admission of this testimony as harmless error, it appears to me that it could hardly be considered harmless when the mental capacity, competency and veracity of the prosecutrix were in issue and the highly objectionable testimony was employed to support her mental capacity and veracity. Under such circumstances it would seem that the State's concession that the permitted testimony would be considered improper by every court in the land is for all practical purposes a confession of error.
TERRELL, C.J., concurs.