Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed September 30, 2022.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
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No. 3D21-1045
Lower Tribunal No. 20-1043
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T.T.W., a juvenile,
Appellant,
vs.
The State of Florida,
Appellee.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Yery
Marrero, Judge.
Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Deborah Prager, Assistant
Public Defender, for appellant.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Asad Ali, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee.
Before EMAS, SCALES, and HENDON, JJ.
HENDON, J.
T.T.W. argues that the trial court violated his constitutional right to
confrontation by permitting, over objection, a prosecution witness—a police
officer—to testify at his juvenile delinquency hearing via Zoom without any
case-specific finding of necessity. Based on this Court’s recent decision in
J.T.B. v. State, Nos. 3D21-577, 3D21-537, 3D21-2038, & 3D21-1549, 2022
WL 2334940 (Fla. 3d DCA June 29, 2022), addressing this issue under
sufficiently similar circumstances 1, we agree. Therefore, we reverse and
remand for a new adjudicatory hearing. J.T.B., 2022 WL 2334940 at *5
(“Accordingly, we conclude that, under these circumstances, the failure to
render case-specific findings of necessity justifying conducting the juvenile
adjudicatory hearings remotely resulted in a denial of due process.”). On
remand, as it appears that we are now in the later stages of the COVID-19
pandemic, the trial court may conduct the adjudicatory hearing via Zoom if it
first holds a hearing on T.T.W.’s objection and “makes a case-specific finding
1
This Court’s decision in J.T.B. involved four separate cases. In three of the
cases, the entire proceeding was conducted remotely. However, in one of
the cases, D.S. v. State (Case No. 3D21-537), the prosecutor and lead
witness were permitted to appear in court, but the juvenile and his sole
witness, his mother, appeared via the Zoom platform on a shared cellphone.
J.T.B., 2022 WL 2334940 at *5. In the instant case, defense counsel, the
trial court, and one of the two State witnesses appeared in person for the
trial, and the other prosecution witness—a police officer—testified via Zoom
on his cellphone, and T.T.W. appeared remotely.
2
of necessity before limiting his confrontation rights.” M.D. v. State, 47 Fla.
L. Weekly D1409, *5 (Fla. 3d DCA June 29, 2022) (footnote omitted).
Reversed and remanded.
3