Dunbar v. State
| Decision Date | 12 March 1969 |
| Docket Number | No. 37881,37881 |
| Parties | Michael DUNBAR, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Robert E. Jagger, Public Defender, and Carleton L. Weidemeyer, Asst. Public Defender, for petitioner.
Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., and Robert R. Crittenden, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
We have for review a decision of a district court of appeal which passed upon a question certified by the deciding court to be of great public interest. Fla.Const. art. V, § 4, F.S.A.; Dunbar v. State, 214 So.2d 52 (2d Dist.Ct.App.Fla.1968).
Our primary problem is to decide whether the rule of Baker v. State, 202 So.2d 563 (Fla.1967), should be applied retroactively.
We are here presented with a post-conviction collateral attack on a conviction and sentence for the crime of robbery. In 1965, Michael Dunbar and three co-defendants were tried and convicted of robbery. Petitioner and one defendant were jointly represented by the Public Defender's office. There was no objection to the arrangement, although there was a motion for severance which was denied.
Two years after the conviction we decided Baker v. State, Supra. The date of the decision was September 20, 1967. We there held that error occurred when a trial judge refused a request for independent counsel. He required co-defendants to stand trial with joint representation by the same counsel in the face of a clear showing of prejudicial conflict of interest between the defendants. Moreover, Baker involved a direct, not a collateral, attack on the conviction.
Our jurisdiction of the instant matter derives from the certification of the questions of great public interest. Incidentally, the certificate in the instant case specifically identified the matters which the District Court deemed to be of 'great public interest.' Such particularity is helpful to us in ascertaining immediately the points considered critical to the ultimate determination of the case. Actually, Fla.Const. art. V, § 4, appears to contemplate specification of the questions considered to be of great public interest by the certifying court.
The certificate accompanying the decision here states it passes upon a question of great public interest 'in that failure to object to one attorney representing two or more co-defendants constitutes fundamental error and that objection need not be made to preserve the error for appellate review; that there must be some showing of a conflict of interest as to constitute prejudice to one or more of the defendants before relief can be granted by the appellate court; and that the effect of Baker has no retroactive application.'
The problems of fundamental error and the need for an objection and a showing of prejudice are discussed and disposed of in our recent opinions in State v Youngblood, 217 So.2d 98 (filed December 17, 1968, Fla.), and Belton v. State, 217 So.2d 97 (filed December 17, 1968, Fla.). On the point now before us, the sum of the holding of the cases last-cited simply is that if there is no request for separate counsel and the court permits trial of joint indigent defendants with single court-appointed counsel, reversible error does not...
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McGee v. State, s. 72--844
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