Morgan v. State, 73--931
| Decision Date | 21 March 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 73--931,73--931 |
| Parties | Lucy Ware MORGAN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
William C. Ballard, Baynard, McLeod, Lang, Eckert & Ballard, St. Petersburg, for appellant.
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Richard C. Booth and Davis Anderson, Asst. Attys. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.
This is an appeal from an order holding a reporter in contempt for refusing to divulge to the State Attorney her source of information for a newspaper article.
On November 1, 1973, there appeared in the Pasco Times, a regional newspaper published by the St. Petersburg Times, an article entitled 'Jury Assails Dade City, Indicts No One' under the by-line of Lucy Ware Morgan, the appellant in this case. Thereupon, the State Attorney caused a subpoena to be issued to appellant to appear before him later that day. When the appellant appeared, the questioning revealed that the purpose of the investigation was to determine the identity of the source of the published news story. Upon appellant's refusal to identify her source, the State Attorney sought a court order requiring her to supply this information.
At the hearing the State Attorney advised that he was conducting the investigation of a possible violation of Fla.Stat. 905.24 (1973). Appellant's motion to quash the subpoena was denied. Once again appellant was asked to divulge the source of her news story. The court directed her to answer the question. She again refused to respond. Thereupon, the court adjudicated her guilty of contempt and sentenced her to be confined in the Pasco County Jail for a period of five months or until such time as she should answer the question propounded by the State Attorney.
This case can be disposed of upon narrow grounds. Fla.Stat. 27.04 (1973) empowers the State Attorney to summon witnesses 'to testify before him as to any violation of the criminal law upon which they may be interrogated . . .' This does not mean that the State Attorney must have a particular criminal statute in mind before he can interrogate a witness under the statute. At the time he is conducting an investigation he may be only suspicious that criminal activity has taken place. Nevertheless, it is clear that the subject matter of his interrogation must be confined to violations of the criminal law. Barnes v. State, Fla.1951, 58 So.2d 157. In the instant case, the State Attorney specifically announced that his interrogation was directed to determining possible violations of Fla.Stat. 905.24 (1973). Therefore, if the violation of this statute does not constitute a crime, he did not have the authority to interrogate the appellant because he was not investigating the violation of a criminal law.
In Taulty v. Hobby, Fla.1954, 71 So.2d 489, the Supreme Court passed on the question of whether a special act prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages after midnight stated an offense punishable under the criminal laws of the state. The portion of the act which provided that a violation of its terms was punishable by a specified fine or imprisonment was held invalid because of the constitutional prohibition against the passage of special or local laws for the punishment of crimes. The court was then faced with the question of whether Fla.Stat. 775.07 (1951) could be applied to the remainder of the act so as to preserve it as a criminal law. 1 The court pointed out that in every cited case where § 775.07 had functioned to provide a punishment, each of the legislative acts involved specifically declared the proscribed conduct either to be unlawful or to be a misdemeanor, or both. Since the valid language of the act did not declare the doing of the things...
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Morgan v. State
...a criminal matter because Section 905.24, Florida Statutes (1975), does not make criminal the conduct it proscribes. Morgan v. State, 309 So.2d 552 (Fla.App.2nd 1975). It was the substance of the grand jury's Presentment, moreover, that was prematurely disclosed. 'The only 'crime' set forth......
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Munsell v. Bludworth
...law. Able Builders Sanitation Co. v. State, 368 So.2d 1340, 1341 (Fla. 3d DCA), dismissed, 373 So.2d 461 (Fla.1979); Morgan v. State, 309 So.2d 552, 553 (Fla. 2d DCA 1975). Moreover, an investigation may be held, and the subpoena powers of section 27.04 may be used, even when the target of ......
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Morgan v. State
...judgment and sentence appealed from herein should be, and they are hereby, affirmed. BOARDMAN and GRIMES, JJ., concur. 1 Morgan v. State (Fla.App.2d, 1975) 309 So.2d 552.2 (Fla.1950), 52 So.2d 117.3 408 U.S. 665, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 33 L.Ed.2d 626 (1972).4 See, e.g., Farr v. Pitchess (9th Cir. 1......
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The prosecutor as investigator.
...This power is restricted to gathering information that may lead to the instituting of criminal proceedings. In Morgan v. State, 309 So. 2d 552 (Fla. 2d DCA 1975), the court reversed an order of contempt that had been issued to a newspaper reporter. She had refused to answer questions posed ......