Driessen v. State, 82-917
Decision Date | 17 May 1983 |
Docket Number | No. 82-917,82-917 |
Parties | Daryl Craig DRIESSEN, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender and William A. Cain, Sp. Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Michael Neimand and Carolyn M. Snurkowski, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and BASKIN and FERGUSON, JJ.
The persistence of the trial court's efforts to obtain a guilty plea from defendant Driessen raises questions concerning the court's impartiality during the jury trial conducted after Driessen rejected the offered plea. The court's statement that "either he pleads to the terms that I gave or he goes to trial" (emphasis added) was not in itself unduly coercive, but when considered in light of subsequent events, reflected the court's bias.
After defendant's counsel concluded his questioning of Mrs. Melvin, Driessen's mother, the court left little doubt that it considered her testimony unworthy of belief. Mrs. Melvin testified that she owned some of the jewelry claimed by the victim of the theft. The court then inquired of Mrs. Melvin:
The court denied defense counsel's motion for mistrial.
When the jury returned its verdict finding nineteen-year-old defendant Driessen guilty of burglary and petit theft, the court imposed the maximum consecutive sentences permitted by law: fifteen years' imprisonment followed by sixty days' incarceration. It is unlikely that these sentences were the subject of the rejected plea negotiations, and they appear to us to include additional punishment for Driessen's exercise of his right to trial.
In light of these circumstances, we conclude that the trial judge's demeanor conveyed the impression that he was not impartial and deprived Driessen of a fair trial. Williams v. State, 143 So.2d 484 (Fla.1962); James v....
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