Lee v. State

DISSENTING OPINION ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING

WOODLEY, Presiding Judge.

While there is no mention of such in our original opinion, or in the motion for rehearing, appellant’s brief filed in the trial court set out as ground of error No. 7: “The trial court erred in permitting the introduction of statements allegedly made by appellant; appellant being under arrest at the time of said alleged statements, he having not been warned of his right to remain silent, his right not to give evidence against himself and his right to counsel.”

The brief contains no argument in support of this ground of error and cites no authorities.

The majority now sustain this ground of error and reverse under the holding of the Supreme Court in Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1604, 16 L.Ed.2d 694.

As pointed out in our original opinion, it was appellant’s counsel who first elicited the testimony that the license plates which had been removed from the stolen car were found from what all three of the co-indictees told the Chief of Police and Deputy Sheriff, and that all three were in the same police car and “showed us the place where the license plates and air cleaner were thro wed away.”

The record further reflects that Officer Jolly saw appellant walk out of a cafe in Henderson and get in the driver’s seat of the stolen car, some two hours after it was stolen, and observed that the license plates had been put on recently and the inspection sticker had been scratched so the license tag number on it could not be read and he detained appellant and his companions for the Jacksonville authorities.

Appellant elicited from this witness testimony that Hogue told him that he had stolen the Pontiac and, in the jury’s absence, elicited from Officer Jolly the fact that after he apprehended and took them in custody he talked to each of the three privately.

The state offered no evidence elicited from appellant in his interrogation by Officer Jolly.

The statements and confessions which the majority conclude were inadmissible under Miranda v. State of Arizona which the state proved were made while the three co-defendants were together and the officers who had them in custody were being directed to the brush pile in the woods where the license plates removed from the stolen car had been thrown. They were admitted only after the defense had elicited the testimony that it was through what “three of them” told the officers that the license plates were found.