Hamilton v. State
| Decision Date | 29 June 1956 |
| Parties | Lionel S. HAMILTON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Joseph L. Wolf, Branch & Goff and Talton A. Branch, Tampa, for appellant.
Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., Jos. Manners and B. Jay Owen, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.
Appellant, who was defendant below, seeks reversal of a judgment of conviction pursuant to a jury verdict finding him guilty of the offense defined by Section 800.04, Florida Statutes, F.S.A., condemning the fondling of a child under 14 years of age in a lewd or indecent manner.
Several points are raised by the appeal but the only quetion that merits detailed consideration is whether the trial judge committed a fundamental error, which would be reviewable in the absence of objection below, by referring to a written statement by the appellant as a 'confession' when in actuality it was not confession.
The appellant was tried and convicted of violation of Section 800.04, Florida Statutes, F.S.A. He was charged with the offense of lewd and indecent fondling of a 12-year old girl. The information alleged with sufficient exactness the particularities of the offense and our decision in the case does not require any detailed delineation of the unpleasant facts as they appear in the record.
While under investigation, the appellant furnished to a deputy sheriff a written statement expressing his version of the facts of the matter. The statement, however, was in no sense a confession. This much is conceded by the State. At the conclusion of his instructions to the jury, the trial judge ended his charge with the remark, 'There is, I believe, a confession here and a photograph, too.' No objection to this remark was offered by appellant's counsel at the time it was made and no assignment of error is grounded thereon.
In his brief on appeal, appellant contends that the error was of such a fundamental nature that it deprived him of his right to a fair trial and justifies reversal despite the fact that it was not objected to at the time it occurred and was not thereafter assigned as error on appeal. It is the contention of the appellant that the judgment should be reversed because of the alleged fundamental error.
The State contends that the error did not reach the ultimate validity of the trial itself and in the absence of objection or assignment grounded thereon, reversal is not justified.
To sustain his position, appellant relies entirely on our opinion in Harrison v. State, 149 Fla. 365, 5 So.2d 703, 707. In that opinion we held that under the circumstances of that particular case, it was error for the trial judge to fail to charge the jury on the weight to be given to a confession even though no such charge was requested. Harrison v. State, supra, was a capital case in which the State relied entirely upon a confession to sustain a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. There was no other supporting evidence or testimony. The alleged confession was the entire foundation on which the State constructed its case against the accused. We held that under such circumstances the trial judge had the responsibility to charge the jury on the "law of the case" which included the weight to be given to a confession upon which the State relied entirely for conviction. The error was fundamental for the reason that without the confession, the conviction could not have been obtained and with the confession the accused was fundamentally entitled to an appropriate charge with reference thereto.
We distinguished Harrison v. State, supra, in Thompson v. State, 154 Fla. 323, 117 So.2d 395, which also was a capital case wherein we took note of the fact that although the trial judge committed error in failing to charge the jury with reference to the weight to be given a confession, nevertheless, there was other evidence offered at the trial which was sufficiently convincing to sustain the...
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Norman v. Gloria Farms, Inc.
...with the supreme court's own usage of fundamental error. One of the earliest of the cases discussing fundamental error is Hamilton v. State, 88 So.2d 606 (Fla.1956). 1 There the was convicted of lewd fondling of a young child. At his trial a written statement given by him to the police was ......
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Nova v. State, 82-1766
...Error which is said to be fundamental is, among others, one which "reaches down to the legality of the trial itself," Hamilton v. State, 88 So.2d 606, 607 (Fla.1956); Gibson v. State, 194 So.2d 19 (Fla. 2d DCA 1967); involves a violation of a defendant's rights which "will always be harmful......
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Rodriguez v. State, 83-2066
...Error which is said to be fundamental is, among others, one which "reaches down to the legality of the trial itself," Hamilton v. State, 88 So.2d 606, 607 (Fla.1956); Gibson v. State, 194 So.2d 19 (Fla. 2d DCA 1967); involves a violation of a defendant's rights which "will always be harmful......
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Ross v. Florida Sun Life Ins. Co., 1778
...itself to the extent that a verdict of guilty could not have been obtained without the assistance of the error alleged.' Hamilton v. State, Fla.1956, 88 So.2d 606, 607. We do not, however, view the failure to object to parol evidence as falling into the above exceptions. We conclude that th......
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