State v. Francois
| Decision Date | 05 April 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 35592,35592 |
| Citation | 197 So.2d 492 |
| Parties | STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Kerry FRANCOIS and Leroy Walker, Respondents. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., and Barry N. Semet, Asst. Atty. Gen., for petitioner.
Ellis S. Rubin, Miami Beach, for respondents.
We here review by conflict certiorari two cases consolidated on appeal by the District Court of Appeal, Third District, which reversed and set aside the convictions of first degree murder and sentences to life imprisonment of respondents, Kerry Francois and Leroy Walker.
Defendants, both sixteen years old at the time, participated with a third party in a robbery on the evening of April 14, 1964, which resulted in the death of the victim, James W. Cramer.
On April 17, 1964, respondent-Walker was brought into the City of Miami Police Station by two policemen and an officer of the Juvenile Court. With permission of juvenile authority, Walker was advised of his rights, then questioned by the police, and thereupon confessed to his complicity in the felony-murder, his statement being recorded. Three days thereafter respondent-Francois was brought to the police station from a juvenile detention facility, advised of his rights, and he too made a statement to the city police implicating himself in the robbery and murder, which statement was also recorded.
Five days after Walker made his oral statement, two days after Francois entered his, and after their parents had been notified and counsel contacted, the written confessions were presented to the defendants at the juvenile detention facility by a detective from the Miami Police Department with the permission of the Juvenile Court. Both defendants were advised of their rights, and subsequently thereto they signed the statements and returned them to the officer. The next day they were bound over to be held in the county jail to await Grand Jury action. Later they were indicted for first degree murder and tried in the Circuit Court.
At the jury trial the confessions were admitted into evidence after counsel had made inquiry into the question of whether they had been freely and voluntarily made. The jury found the defendants guilty of first degree murder and recommended mercy, resulting in sentences to life imprisonment. Upon appeal the District Court, by a two-one decision, reversed and remanded for a new trial.
Jurisdiction of this court was invoked and activated because of conflict with Clay v. State (Fla.1940), 143 Fla. 204, 196 So. 462, in which case the defendants were under sixteen years of age and were apprehended in connection with a murder. The confessions of their complicity in the crime were admitted into evidence upon the finding by the trial court that they had been freely and voluntarily made.
In the instant case, we hold it was error for the District Court to reverse the trial court on the sole basis that the confessions admitted into evidence were made while defendants were still under the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court. No showing is made that the statements were not voluntary of that the boys did not understand the nature and consequence of their acts. The defendants were physically in the City of Miami police station and were being questioned by a city detective with the permission of the juvenile authorities when they made their statements of complicity in the crime. The fact that both were lodged within the juvenile facility when the city police presented their written statements would have no adverse bearing on the admissibility of their confessions. One young man had two days and the other five days in the comparative quiet of the juvenile quarters to consider whether they wanted to retract the statements previously made at the police station. Evidently they did not wish to do so, inasmuch as they, together, were advised of their rights, read their statements, heard them read, made corrections, signed them and gave them to the police officer who had obtained permission from the Juvenile Court to deliver them for signature.
Before the confessions were signed the parents had been notified and an attorney contacted, but from the record these facts are not determinative inasmuch as neither the parents nor the attorneys had consulted with the defendants before they signed their statements.
At the trial, when the state sought to introduce the confessions into evidence defense counsel objected, the jury retired from the courtroom, and an extensive questioning was directed to the issue of whether the confessions were the product of defendants' free and voluntary acts. At the conclusion of the examination the confessions were admitted.
It is apparent that no promise of leniency, reward, or other improper inducements were made, no duress of any type was used, and the court and its officers scrupulously adhered to the highest type of questioning with the one objective in mind i.e. to extract the truth from defendants. It is clear that the test of verity was met and that therefore under our decisions the confessions were eligible to be received in evidence. Leach v. State (Fla.1961), 132 So.2d 329; Young v. State (Fla.1962), 140 So.2d 97; Watson v. State, Fla., 190 So.2d 161; Clay v. State (Fla.1940), 143 Fla. 204, 196 So. 462.
Walker and Francois were initially put into the custody of the Juvenile courts which our Legislature has established for the benefit of those persons under 17 years of age, and they were there kept until it...
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Ramirez v. State
...by a juvenile involuntary. See Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U.S. 49, 52-55, 82 S.Ct. 1209, 8 L.Ed.2d 325 (1962); State v. Francois, 197 So.2d 492, 493-95 (Fla.1967). Instead, we look to the juvenile's age, along with his experience, education, background and intelligence,5 in assessing whether......
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State v. Young
...a sixteen-year-old appellant where the confession was freely and voluntarily given are numerous. (State v. Hinkle, supra; State v. Francois, 197 So.2d 492 (Fla. 1967); and State v. Hardy, 107 Ariz. 583, 491 P.2d 17 (1971).) The length of the questioning is also important. (People v. Pierre,......
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O'Neil v. State
... ... 528] is voluntarily given to police authorities is not inadmissible at his trial as an adult solely because the defendant was within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court at the time the confession was elicited. See State of Florida v. Francois, Fla., 197 So.2d 492 (1967); People v. Lara, 67 Cal.2d 365, 62 Cal.Rptr. 586, 432 P.2d 202.' ... We might add that a juvenile hearing was had on January 20, 1969 a heretofore mentioned. Prior thereto the juveniles were taken into juvenile court for a bond setting on January 13, as ... ...
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Thomas v. State, 61170
...the voluntariness of a statement, will not render inadmissible a confession which is shown to have been made voluntarily. State v. Francois, 197 So.2d 492 (Fla.1967)." Ross v. State, 386 So.2d 1191, 1195 (Fla.1980). Regarding intoxication, at the suppression hearing appellant and another wi......