Reddick v. State, 6551

• Decision Date: 10 August 1966
• Docket Number: No. 6551,6551
• Citation: 190 So.2d 340
• Parties: William REDDICK, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 340

190 So.2d 340

William REDDICK, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 6551.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

Aug. 10, 1966.

On Rehearing and/or Clarification Oct. 5, 1966.

Robert E. Jagger, Public Defender and John J. Duffy, Special Asst. Public Defender, Clearwater, for appellant.

Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and William D. Roth, Asst. Atty., Gen., Lakeland, for appellee.

PIERCE, Judge.

William Reddick, Willie Charles Hill and Irene Leverne Jackson were charged as joint principals in the first degree murder of one Johnnie Jackson by beating him to death with a blunt instrument, in a grand jury indictment returned into the Pasco County Circuit Court on December 21, 1961. The offense was alleged to have occurred on November 23, 1961, in Pasco County.

On February 15, 1962, the several defendants were arraigned, entered individual pleas of not guilty to the indictment, and the case was set for trial on March 12, 1962. On February 19, 1962, the three defendants filed joint motion for severance, and an March 3, 1962, the motion was denied. Thereafter, on March 12, 1962, all defendants were in Court, announced ready for trial, and they thereupon renewed individual motions for severance. The trial Judge denied each renewed motion separately. William Reddick then changed his plea from not guilty to guilty, and the Court accepted such change of plea and adjudged Reddick to be guilty.

The trial of co-defendants Hill and Jackson then proceeded forthwith before a jury, resulting in separate verdicts being returned at 12:13 A.M. on the morning of March 15, 1962, finding both Hill and Jackson guilty of murder in the first degree, without recommendation. Thereafter, on April 24, 1962, the three defendants, including Reddick, were brought before the Court and each sentenced to death in the electric chair.

Hill and Jackson then appealed to the Supreme Court of Florida, 158 So.2d 133, and on December 6, 1963, the Supreme Court reversed the judgments of conviction against said codefendants for the reasons 'that the trial court clearly abused its discretion in denying the motion of these defendants for severance and that the interests of justice require that these defendants be retried for the crime for which they have been indicted', directing that they be given separate trials. Irene Jackson was then placed upon retrial on February 19, 1964, was found guilty by the jury of second degree murder, and was thereupon sentenced to life imprisonment. On March 13, 1964, codefendant Hill, with the concurrence of the State Attorney, was permitted to enter a plea of guilty to second degree murder, and he was thereupon also sentenced to life imprisonment.

Thereafter, on December 29, 1964, motion was filed by William Reddick under Criminal Procedure Rule No. 1, F.S.A. ch. 924 Appendix to set aside, as null and void, the judgment and sentence against him, on the ground that in the Court proceedings leading up to the entry of said judgment and sentence he had been deprived of the equal protection of the laws and had not been accorded due process of law, under the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Florida. After a hearing upon said motion to vacate, the trial Court, on July 29, 1965, entered order denying said motion and the relief prayed thereunder, the effect of which was to leave in full force the death sentence previously imposed. From the order of July 29, 1965, Reddick has appealed to this Court, and assigns as error here the denial of said motion under C.P.R. No. 1.

In his motion under Rule 1, Reddick made many and sundry charges of mistreatment and maltreatment toward him after being taken into custody and before being sentenced to the extreme penalty, on the part of practically everyone connected with the trial proceedings, including the deputy sheriffs, the special investigator, the committing magistrate, his own succession of counsel, the prosecuting attorneys and the trial Judge. Many and numerous acts of misconduct, mistreatments and impositions upon and against him were alleged in the petition, most of which were patently wild, reckless and irresponsible, some obviously fantastic and fabricated, others affirmatively refuted by the record, others obviously without any legal merit, and others having no possible relation to the proper functions of a petition under Rule 1.

The petition runs the gamut in listing his Constitutional guaranties that were allegedly flaunted, among which were Sections 1, 3, 4, 8, 11, and 12 of the Florida Declaration of Rights, F.S.A., the 6th and 8th Amendments to the Federal Constitution, and the several clauses of the 14th Amendment; as well as various other portions of those two organic documents which the scrivener of the petition did not bother to particularize in his breathless haste to 'cover the waterfront'.

We deem it unnecessary to refer further to the nine page petition except to observe that in the morass of Allegata therein there were only two matters of sufficient substance to warrant our consideration on appeal, which matters will be hereinafter separately dealt with. After perfunctory hearing on the motion, the trial Court on July 29, 1965 entered a five page order which in the last two lines thereof denied Reddick's motion under Rule 1. The rest of the order is an attempt to justify the acts of the Judge and the course of the pre-trial proceedings generally. This is the order which this Court is now called upon to review.

Appeals before this Court under C.P.R. No. 1 have been many and varied. The remedy may be invoked only when the trial court procedures have been so infected with constitutional vices as to leave the judgment or sentence without basis of validity. As was said in Crusoe v. State, Fla.App.1966,183 So.2d 600: '(t)he post-conviction relief rule is available only when (a) the judgment was rendered without jurisdiction, or (b) the sentence imposed was not authorized by law or was otherwise open to collateral attack, or (c) there has been such a denial or infringement of constitutional rights as to render the judgment vulnerable to collateral attack.'

As hereinbefore observed, there were only two matters raised by the proceedings under Rule 1 that merit serious consideration here. They are (1) the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the plea of guilty to first degree murder, as shown by the record, and (b) the denial of Reddick's motions for severance. We hold that these matters have such a quality of infringement upon Constitutional rights as to have required the granting of the petition. We will take the two matters up in separate order.

A. The Plea of Guilty. A plea of guilty must be entirely voluntary by one competent to know the consequences, and may not be induced by any form of undue motivation, among which are Misapprehension and Coercion. Canada v. State, 1940, 144 Fla. 633, 198 So. 220; Artigas v. State, 1940, 140 Fla. 671, 192 So. 795; Rubenstein v. State, Fla.1951, 50 So.2d 708; Asbey v. State, Fla.App.1958, 102 So.2d 407; Hill v. State, Fla.App.1959, 110 So.2d 464; Roberts v. State, Fla.App.1962, 142 So.2d 152; Blake v. State, Fla.App.1965, 171 So.2d 207. And even a Slight undue motivation will invalidate such a plea; it must be 'without semblance' of such influence. Clay v. State, 1921, 82 Fla. 83, 89 So. 353; Casey v. State, 1934, 116 Fla. 3, 156 So. 282; Nickels v. State, 1923, 86 Fla. 208, 98 So. 497, 99 So. 121; Brown v. State, 1926, 92 Fla. 592, 109 So. 627.

In Jones v. State, Fla.App.1964, 165 So.2d 191, this 2nd District Court reversed an order denying a motion under Rule No. 1 brought to obtain relief from being allegedly coerced into pleading guilty. In Lee v. State, Fla.App.1965, 175 So.2d 95, the 3rd District Court likewise reversed an order entered upon an identical petition under Rule No. 1. And in McCray v. State, Fla.App.1966, 181 So.2d 729, it was said that '(i)ndividuals accused of crimes possess extensive constitutional rights which must be safeguarded, (and) such rights include freedom to plead guilty or not guilty.' In the Jones and Lee cases it was held that a person charged with crime 'who is coerced into entering a plea of guilty is deprived of a constitutional right'. And misapprehension induced by State or Court action is certainly a form of implied coercion.

We have determined that entering a plea of guilty which is infected with the vitiating ingredient of coercion or misapprehension constitutes an impairment of constitutional rights remediable by collateral attack under Criminal Procedure Rule No. 1. And this would be all the more so in a situation where a man's life is at stake.

So we now have to determine what went on, and what influences and suggestions the defendant Reddick was subjected to on the morning of March 12, 1962, between the time he was brought into Court for trial and the time he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. There is no better way than to refer to the record itself. The following is the recorded report ¹ of the pertinent discussions and proceedings had in the trial Judge's chambers just prior to the actual start of the trial itself, there being present the trial Judge, the Assistant State Attorney Getzen, defense attorneys Altman, Luckie and Bales, representing defendants Reddick, Hill and Jackson, respectively, and the Court Reporter:

'MR. ALTMAN: Let me ask you (Mr. Getzen) this: Will you, or will Mr. Davis (the State Attorney, who was not present), Agree or to consider a recommendation of mercy if my client pleads guilty to first degree murder? I'm not talking about second degree; I'm talking about first degree. Or would you call him and ask him.

MR. GETZEN: Yes, I'll call him and ask him.

MR. ALTMAN: That might settle something in a hurry for me.

THE COURT: There's no question but that should be something the Court should take into consideration.'

'MR. GETZEN: I will say this: If they plead guilty to...