Court Opinion

ID: 9561702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:14:23.185498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:15.521689
License: Public Domain

Finney, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusions that appellant’s statement to the police was admissible. In my opinion, the statement must be suppressed as involuntary and obtained in violation of appellant’s due process rights.
Police interrogators falsely told appellant they had a witness who disputed his alibi and a witness who has seen appellant and the victim together on the night she was murdered. The police misrepresented to appellant that the tire impressions and footprints found at the crime scene were consistent with appellant’s car and shoes. In my view, this deception— coupled with the fact the police ignored the eighteen-year-old *484appellant’s repeated requests to talk to his mother and misrepresented the result of their visit to his mother so as to inveigle him into giving a confession — renders the confession involuntary and inadmissible as evidence.
The majority acknowledges that police misconduct in misrepresenting evidence is a deplorable practice but, nonetheless, condones the fruits of these acts. I am persuaded that to do so is to commit error. “The countenancing of such conduct can only further erode the public’s confidence in law enforcement, and their respect for the justice system. Wherever that fine line between acceptable and unacceptable deceptive police conduct may be, there can be no question that it has been crossed here.” State v. Von Dohlen, — S.C. —, 471 S.E. (2d) 689 (1996) (Davis Adv. Sh. No. 14 at 6 (Finney, C.J., dissenting). It is my view the police misconduct amounted to coercion and deprived this appellant of a fair and impartial trial. I would hold the trial judge erred in failing to suppress this statement, which was coerced as the result of police fabrication. See State v. Cayward, 552 So. (2d) 971 (Fla. App. 2d Dist. 1989) review dismissed 562 So. (2d) 347 (Fla. 1990).
I would reverse for the reasons given above.