Elkin v. State
| Decision Date | 13 September 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 87-523,87-523 |
| Parties | 13 Fla. L. Weekly 2152 Margaret ELKIN, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Mark King Leban, Miami, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Mark S. Dunn and Ralph Barreira, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and NESBITT and JORGENSON, JJ.
On Motions for Clarification and Rehearing
We grant the parties' motions for clarification and deny the appellee's motion for rehearing, vacate our previous opinion and replace it with the following:
The defendant appeals her conviction for first-degree murder. For the following reasons, we reverse and remand for a new trial.
During the investigation of the defendant concerning the murder of her husband, police took statements from her on four separate occasions. One such statement occurred following her visit to the funeral home to view her husband's body on the evening of December 16, 1983. While the defendant was at the funeral home, a detective telephoned her to request that she submit to another interview. At the time she was taken by police from the funeral home to the station house, she was already considered a suspect, yet she was not given her Miranda rights. While the interrogating officer testified that in his mind she was free to leave at any time, the record shows that this fact was never communicated to her. A station house interrogation is inherently more coercive than an interrogation in other less suggestive settings and may lead reasonable persons to believe their freedom of action is restricted in a significant way. Drake v. State, 441 So.2d 1079, 1081 (Fla.1983). For this reason, the trial court erred in admitting this statement into evidence at trial against her.
As part of the state's evidence relating to the defendant's alleged motive in having procured the murder of her husband, a man, Joe Loggins, was correctly permitted to testify that the defendant told him and his wife that she would pay him $10,000 "to get rid of Cecil," and that "because I got double indemnity on my insurance," she would pay him $20,000 if it looked like an accident. At some point, the defendant suggested that Joe Loggins could take Cecil Elkin out in a boat and say that his hat blew off and that Cecil fell overboard while trying to retrieve it. However, the court erred in permitting the jury to hear the testimony of an insurance agent, Charles Gorrill, who testified that the defendant's previous husband, one Sam Smilich, was found drowned in a canal and that the defendant received double indemnity insurance benefits due to his accidental drowning. No connexity existed between the death of Smilich and the murder of the defendant, State v. Norris, 168...
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State v. Elkin, 90-576
...gave was improperly admitted in the original trial since that statement was taken in violation of the Miranda Rule. Elkin v. State, 531 So.2d 219 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988). Upon remand, the defendant's three other statements to the police remained viable. The admissibility of the defendant's first......
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Wilkins v. State, 91-2456
...1215, 1216-17 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990); King v. State, 545 So.2d 375 (Fla. 4th DCA), rev. denied, 551 So.2d 462 (Fla.1989); Elkin v. State, 531 So.2d 219 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988); McClain v. State, 516 So.2d 53 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987); Rolle v. State, 431 So.2d 326 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983); Chapman v. State, 417 ......
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Butler v. State, 88-1212
...settings and may lead reasonable persons to believe their freedom of action is restricted in a significant way. Elkin v. State, 531 So.2d 219 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988), citing Drake v. State, 441 So.2d 1079, 1081 (Fla.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 978, 104 S.Ct. 2361, 80 L.Ed.2d 832 (1984). Theref......