Hearn v. State
| Decision Date | 23 October 1951 |
| Citation | 54 So.2d 651 |
| Parties | HEARN et al. v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Wm. W. Flournoy, De Funiak Springs, for appellants.
Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen. and Wm. A. O'Bryan, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
This is an appeal by three defendants from a conviction in the Circuit Court of Walton County for the larceny of one cow, the property of one M. M. Adkinson.
The only question raised and involved is whether the lower court erred in admitting a confession of the defendants. If the confession was properly admitted into evidence by the lower court, then the conviction should stand.
The lower court excluded the jury while hearing the testimony of the officer who took the confession and who was a witness thereto as to the circumstances surrounding the signing of the separate confessions of the three defendants. The defendants' counsel cross-examined this officer out of the presence of the jury at this stage of the proceeding. Thereupon and without any further objection by the defendants or any offer by their counsel to place them or any of them on the stand to testify as to their version of how the confessions were obtained, the lower court recalled the jury and proceeded to let the jury hear the confessions. At this latter point the defendants, through counsel, objected to the further proceedings in the trial until the court had determined the admissibility of the confessions, but not even then did they request the further withdrawal of the jury, or offer to testify as to how the confessions were signed or the circumstances under which they were obtained. This objection was overruled and the trial proceeded, thus giving rise to this assignment of error.
The defendants never took the stand at any time during the course of the trial, either when the jury was excluded or when the jury was hearing the case, to explain the confessions or to testify on their behalf as to either the merits of the case or as to the voluntariness or non-voluntariness of their confessions.
The defendants insist that this case is governed by the case of Bates v. State, 78 Fla. 672, 84 So. 373, which case outlined the procedure a trial court must follow before a confession is admissible. The lower court followed the general procedure outlined therein by excluding the jury while questioning the officer who took the confessions and who was a witness thereto, thus in effect determining that the confessions...
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Watson v. State
...did so in favor of the admission of the written confessions. It appears he complied with rules applicable to the situation. See Hearn v. State (Fla.) 54 So.2d 651. We are not unmindful of the holdings in Escobedo v. State of Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977, and People ......
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Colebrook v. State
...nonadmissibility of the confession upon the ground of involuntariness. Therefore, appellant's first point is governed by Hearn v. State, Fla.1951, 54 So.2d 651, * * * * * * * * See United States v. Indiviglio, 352 F.2d 276, 277 (2d Cir. 1965). Notwithstanding the absence of a specific objec......
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Simpson v. State
...objection for appellate review. See Sims v. State, 54 Fla. 100, 44 So. 737 (1907); Meade v. State, Fla.1957, 96 So.2d 776 and Hearn v. State, Fla.1951, 54 So.2d 651. By not making such specific objection at trial, he waived this objection to the introduction of the confession into evidence ......
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Brown v. State
...Bates case are Harrison v. State, 149 Fla. 365, 5 So.2d 703 (1942), Williams v. State, 156 Fla. 300, 22 So.2d 821 (1945), Hearn v. State, Fla., 54 So.2d 651 (1951), Graham v. State, Fla., 91 So.2d 662 (1956), Nelson v. State, Fla., 97 So.2d 250 (1957), and Young v. State, Fla., 140 So.2d 97......