Title: Land v. State
Citation: 293 So. 2d 704
Docket Number: 44269
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: March 20, 1974

293 So. 2d 704 (1974)
Leo LAND, Petitioner,
v.
STATE of Florida, Respondent.
No. 44269.

Supreme Court of Florida.
March 20, 1974.
Rehearing Denied May 22, 1974.
David J. Busch, Asst. Public Defender; and Robert C. Parker, Jr., Special Asst. Public Defender, for petitioner.
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and Raymond L. Marky, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
BOYD, Justice.
This cause is before us on petition for writ of certiorari to the District Court of Appeal, First District. That court has certified that its decision, reported at 280 So. 2d 706, is one passing upon a question of great public interest, giving this Court jurisdiction under Article V, Section 3(b)(3), of the Constitution of the State of Florida, F.S.A.
The facts of the case, as reported by the District Court, are as follows:
On the basis of the foregoing facts, the District Court held that the refusal to set aside the verdict finding the defendant guilty, and the refusal to grant a new trial on all of the issues in the case, because the defendant had been erroneously denied the right to testify outside the presence of the jury concerning the voluntariness of his confession, and the deferral of a ruling on his motion for new trial until a full evidentiary hearing could be held to determine whether the defendant's confession was voluntary, was not an abuse of discretion. We hereby reverse the decision of the District Court, for reasons which will be set forth below.
The State attempted to establish the predicate for the admission of Petitioner's inculpatory statement to the sheriff. The sheriff's testimony was taken outside the presence of the jury. Petitioner, however, was denied an opportunity to testify outside the presence of the jury for the limited purpose of disputing the voluntariness of the confession. Defense counsel was careful to preserve the record in that regard:
The trial court's ruling was clearly erroneous under Florida law. Graham v. State.[2] The trial court recognized its mistake, and admitted having erred in its Order on Motion for New Trial, where it stated:
The trial court concluded, however, that such error did not require the granting of a new trial. In reaching this conclusion, the trial court reasoned:
Accordingly, the trial court held a post-trial evidentiary hearing for the purpose of allowing Petitioner an opportunity to present testimony concerning the voluntariness of his confession which had previously been submitted to the jury. At this hearing, defense counsel announced a decision not to proceed further with such an evidentiary hearing on the grounds that such a post-trial proceeding was improper under recent decisional law and denied Petitioner the right to be accorded due process of law. The trial court thereupon denied Petitioner's Motion for New Trial, and entered judgment and sentence. By a split decision, the District Court affirmed the trial court's judgment, and adopted its reasoning as to the necessity for granting new trials under such circumstances. In so doing, the court relied heavily on Jackson v. Denno,[3] and this Court's decision in Fowler v. State.[4] We are of the opinion, however, that the District Court's reliance on those decisions is misplaced.
In Jackson, defendant Jackson was taken to a hospital following a shootout with a New York City policeman. Jackson was seriously wounded, and he received doses of demerol and scopolamine, following which, he was questioned by an Assistant District Attorney, under conditions that appeared to be coercive. He gave a confession, which was later admitted into evidence under the "New York" Rule, and the jury returned a verdict finding Jackson guilty of murder in the first degree. (Briefly, the "New York" Rule allowed a trial judge to leave the question of voluntariness to the jury if there was a factual conflict in the evidence as to voluntariness over which reasonable men could differ.)
The Supreme Court of the United States, in reviewing Jackson's conviction, found that the "New York" Rule violated Jackson's constitutional rights to due process and equal protection of the laws which required "a reliable and clear-cut determination of the voluntariness of the confession, including the resolution of disputed facts upon which the voluntariness issue may depend."[5] In disposing of the case, the Court held that Jackson was entitled to an evidentiary hearing on the voluntariness issue and stated:
The Court then stated:
As dissenting Judge Johnson aptly noted in his opinion below, this latter statement is a mandate for state courts to hold the evidentiary hearing prior to trial. Otherwise, the result is "piecemeal" prosecution. Where the hearings come after the trial, the likely result is that judges, who are concerned with, as was the majority below, "court dockets [that] are entirely too congested."[8] become somewhat less sensitive to due process considerations, and see retrials as "useless and expensive trials which will serve no real purpose."[9] We, however, are convinced that, when a man's liberty is at stake, considerations of due process outweigh those of economics. In the words of dissenting Judge Johnson:
Fowler v. State,[11] relied on by the majority below, cannot serve as precedent in this area. In Fowler, defense counsel requested a sanity hearing under then Rule 1.210(a), Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, 33 F.S.A., prior to trial. Instead, the trial court judge read the reports of three doctors, and found the defendant fit to stand trial. This Court temporarily remanded the cause for an evidentiary hearing to determine the claim of insanity at the time of trial, with instructions to vacate the adjudication of guilt and sentence if the defendant was found to be insane. If not found insane, this Court was to further exercise its jurisdiction on the merits. Fowler has nothing to do with confessions. There is no reference to the explicit language of Jackson v. Denno, supra, directing new trials in the future where hearings as to the voluntariness of the confession are held. The majority in the District Court below has seized upon a narrow holding and rather unique disposition in Fowler, and has misapplied it to an area of criminal law for which it is ill-suited. As further noted by dissenting Judge Johnson:
In an additional memorandum, submitted after argument, the State has urged that *709 our decision in the instant case should be controlled by Swenson v. Stidham,[13] recently decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. Swenson, however, is distinguishable from the instant case for the following reasons:
1. In Swenson, the trial court originally held a full evidentiary hearing as to the voluntariness of the confession outside the presence of the jury. In the instant case, there was no such hearing.
2. In Swenson, the trial court allowed defense counsel "... to proceed to challenge the voluntariness of the statement and confession, even before the jury ...". In the instant case, defense counsel was only allowed to cross-examine one witness, the sheriff.
3. In Swenson, the original trial was held in 1955, prior to Jackson v. Denno, supra. Twelve years later, following the Jackson decision, a new evidentiary hearing was ordered to insure that the Missouri procedure comported with the Jackson rule. In the instant case, the original trial was held in 1972, subsequent to the Jackson decision. A single post-trial evidentiary hearing was held because of the "confessed error" of the trial judge in failing to hold a proper hearing as provided under the Jackson rule and numerous Florida decisions before and after Jackson.
4. In Swenson the issue, given the above facts, was:
The Swenson Court held that "The Jackson v. Denno error, if any, was [sufficiently] remedied" (emphasis supplied), but that the federal habeas corpus issue required a remand for determination as to whether the confession was "involuntary and inadmissible as a matter of [federal] law". In the instant case, given the fact of no evidentiary hearing before or during the trial, the issue is whether established state court procedure as well as the Jackson prospective ruling, requires a new trial.
In any event, as the District Court correctly observed in its opinion in Allen v. State,[15] this Court has reversed judgments, and ordered new trials in numerous cases in which a confession was held to be improperly admitted in evidence at trial.[16] As Judge Carroll wrote for the District Court in Allen:
We are thus today compelled to grant Petitioner a new trial under those same "precepts of justice".
Accordingly, the opinion of the District Court of Appeal is quashed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings consistent herewith.
It is so ordered.
ERVIN, McCAIN and CARLTON (Retired), JJ., concur.
ADKINS, C.J., and ROBERTS and DEKLE, JJ., dissent.
[1]  280 So. 2d  at 707-708 (Footnote omitted).
[2]  91 So. 2d 662 (Fla. 1956). See also Bates v. State, 78 Fla. 672, 84 So. 373 (1919); Kitchens v. State, 240 So. 2d 321 (Fla.App.1st 1970); Allen v. State, 239 So. 2d 33 (Fla.App. 1st 1970).
[3]  378 U.S. 368, 84 S. Ct. 1774, 12 L. Ed. 2d 908 (1964).
[4]  255 So. 2d 513 (Fla. 1971).
[5]  378 U.S.  at 391, 84 S. Ct.  at 1788 (Footnote omitted.)
[6]  Id. at 394, 84 S. Ct.  at 1790.
[7]  Id. at 395, 84 S. Ct.  at 1791. (Emphasis supplied.)
[8]  280 So. 2d  at 711.
[9]  Id.
[10]  Id. at 713 (Emphasis supplied.)
[11]  See note 4, supra.
[12]  280 So. 2d  at 714. (Emphasis supplied.)
[13]  409 U.S. 224, 93 S. Ct. 359, 34 L. Ed. 2d 431 (1972).
[14]  Id. at 225, 93 S. Ct.  at 361.
[15]  See note 2, supra.
[16]  See, e.g., Reddish v. State, 167 So. 2d 858 (Fla. 1964); Harrison v. State, 149 Fla. 365, 5 So. 2d 703 (1942); Crawford v. State, 70 Fla. 323, 70 So. 374 (1915).
[17]  239 So. 2d  at 37. To the same effect is Kitchens v. State, 240 So. 2d  at 323.