Williams v. State
Decision Date | 04 February 2005 |
Docket Number | No. 5D03-1114.,5D03-1114. |
Citation | 892 So.2d 1185 |
Parties | Jason Novelle WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Michael H. LaFay of NeJame, Harrington & Barker, Quintana, Tumarkin, LaFay & Byron, P.A., Orlando, for Appellant. Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Bonnie Jean Parrish, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.
Jason Novelle Williams appeals his conviction for lewd and lascivious battery on a person 12 years of age or older but less than 16 years of age. We affirm because any error was not preserved.
Williams, age 24 at the time of the alleged offense, was accused of having intercourse with a fourteen-year-old girl after picking her up at the middle school she attended. She testified that she became acquainted with him at the store at which he worked and had visited him there on occasion. On one occasion, she testified, he gave her the number for a cell phone he was going to be using, and she called him the next day from her middle school, asking him to pick her up. Her step-mother happened to call the school that day and then went to the school, where she spoke to the school resource officer and three other students. In the meantime, having allegedly had intercourse with her, Williams dropped her off, as she directed, at the home of a friend of hers. The victim and her friend left with another friend, and when they arrived at one location, she was met by deputies who took her home. Fearing that she might have used drugs, her parents took her to a hospital, where she eventually told her aunt that she had intercourse with Williams and where an inconclusive rape kit was utilized. She initially denied to her parents that she had intercourse, but later stated she had intercourse with a person she had met named, "Josh," and then subsequently said she had intercourse with Williams.
Later, at his workplace, Williams agreed to speak with a detective. They spoke in the detective's car, where the detective secretly recorded the conversation. After Williams denied having sex with the victim, the detective told Williams two falsehoods: that the victim had changed her story and was currently claiming that she had been forcibly raped and that the detective had forensic evidence of a sexual encounter between the victim and Williams. The detective told Williams he believed it was a consensual encounter, that the ball was in Williams's court, and that the detective could "go" with what he had:
Shortly thereafter, Williams admitted having had sex with the victim.
On appeal, Williams argues that the confession was coerced and that the admission of his confession at trial was fundamental error. Although his counsel argued to the jury that the confession was involuntary in that it was the product of the detective's misrepresentations, he never moved to suppress it. We conclude that any error in admitting the confession was not fundamental and that therefore the issue is not cognizable on appeal. A well-established principle of appellate review is that an appellate court must "confine the parties litigant to the points raised and determined in the court below, and [must] not [ ] permit the presentation of points, or objections for the first time in court, when the same might have been cured or obviated by amendment, if attention had been called to them in the trial court." State v. Osvath, 661 So.2d 1252 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995) (quoting Sanford v. Rubin, 237 So.2d 134, 137 (Fla.1970)) (alterations in Osvath). Further, the contemporaneous objection rule prohibits counsel from attempting to gain a tactical advantage by failing to challenge errors and then seeking a second trial if the first decision is adverse to the client. J.B. v. State, 705 So.2d 1376, 1378 (Fla.1998) "[R]arely will an error be deemed fundamental, and the more general rule requiring a contemporaneous objection to preserve an issue for appellate review will usually apply." F.B. v. State, 852 So.2d 226, 229-230 (Fla.2003).
Our supreme court has stated: "To justify not imposing the contemporaneous objection rule, `the error must reach down into the validity of the trial itself to the extent that a verdict of guilty could not have been obtained without the assistance of the alleged error.'" State v. Delva, 575 So.2d 643, 644-45 (Fla.1991) (quoting Brown v. State, 124 So.2d 481, 484 (Fla.1960)). Further: "[a]n error is fundamental when it goes to the foundation of the case or the merits of the cause of action and is equivalent to a denial of due process." J.B., 705 So.2d at 1378 (citing State v. Johnson, 616 So.2d 1, 3 (Fla.1993)); see also Chandler v. State, 702 So.2d 186, 191 n. 5 (Fla.1997)
(. )
In F.B., which involved claims that the insufficiency of the evidence was fundamental error, the court provided illustrations of errors that were so substantial they were considered fundamental:
( ); Griffin v. State, 705 So.2d 572, 574 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998) ( ); Harris v. State, 647 So.2d 206, 208 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) ( ); Nelson v. State, 543 So.2d 1308, 1309 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989) ( ).
Id. at 230. The court held that in non-death penalty cases, a claim of insufficiency of the evidence must be preserved unless the evidence is insufficient to show that a crime was committed at all. Id. at 230.
In the instant case, any error in admitting the confession was not as substantial as the errors described in F.B. We do not think that the admission of the allegedly coerced confession can be considered fundamental because the error does not reach down into the validity of the trial itself to the extent that a verdict of guilty could not have been obtained without the assistance of the alleged error....
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Fleitas v. State, 3D05-687.
...error need not be preserved if it "reaches to the foundation of the case and is equal to a denial of due process." Williams v. State, 892 So.2d 1185, 1187 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005). See also F.B. v. State, 852 So.2d 226, 229 (Fla. 2003); State v. Johnson, 616 So.2d 1, 3 (Fla. 1993). Indeed, "[t]o......
- Hedglin v. State, 5D04-1395.
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Defendant's statements
...does not move to suppress a statement, the issue whether the confession was voluntary is not preserved for appeal. Williams v. State, 892 So. 2d 1185 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005) The court has discretion to permit the jury to have a video player in the jury room to view a video of the defendant’s co......