IDA MAE HAINES
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
Ida Mae Haines was convicted of manslaughter after being charged with second-degree murder. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed her conviction, rejecting challenges to the sufficiency of evidence and the admissibility of her unsigned, typewritten confession made to police officers.
The conviction is affirmed. The evidence was sufficient to support the verdict. The confession was properly admitted because reading it aloud to the jury in the presence of the adverse party was equivalent to introducing the written document, and there was no objection to this method. The confession was voluntarily made as there was no evidence of mistreatment or coercion.
“There appears to have been no mistreatment or coercion of the appellant by the officers and the conclusion may be reasonably drawn from the record that the statement was freely and voluntarily made.”
Establishes that the confession was voluntary despite being unsigned, based on the absence of coercive circumstances.
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceHaines was arrested shortly after a homicide and confessed to police officers. Her confession was typewritten, read back to her, and approved by her, …
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Admissibility Of Confessions cases and more on FLexlaw
The appellant, having been tried under an information charging her with the commission of the offense of murder in the second degree, was convicted of manslaughter and from judgment upon such conviction brings her appeal to this court.
Six questions are presented by appellant for our consideration. The first, second, third and fifth questions challenge the sufficiency of -the evidence to support the verdict and judgment. We find from the record that the evidence was somewhat conflicting but there is ample evidence which, if believed by the jury, to warrant the verdict and support the judgment.
Question four challenges the admissibility of the confession made by appellant to several police officers soon after her arrest, which followed soon after the homicide was committed.
It is shown by the record that the statement constituting a confession was made by the appellant, was reduced to writing on typewriter, was read over to appellant and approved by her but was not signed.
The statement made by appellant was read to the court in the absence of the jury and the circumstances under which it was made were delineated by the witnesses. The court determined that the statement was voluntarily made and was admissible in evidence. After the statement was read to the jury by the police officer who conducted the examination of the appellant at the time the statement was made and the circumstances under which that statement was made by appellant were delineated to the jury.
There appears to have been no mistreatment or coercion of the appellant by the officers and the conclusion may be reasonably drawn from the record that the statement was freely and voluntarily made.
It is contended here that the statement was not properly admitted in evidence though it may have been admissible because it was merely read to the jury by the witness who in*11terrogated the appellant at the police station and the written statement was not offered in evidence. The record shows no objection made at the time to this method of introducing the statement and it was admitted without objection in this regard. We think this was equivalent to introducing the written document in evidence because the record shows that the document was read to the jury in the presence of the adverse party who had every opportunity to inspect it and object to it and who made no objection. See 23 C.J.S. 422, Criminal Law, Sec. 1035. Also see Robertson v. State, 94 Fla. 869, 114 So. 534. In fact, the testimony given by the appellant was sufficient to warrant the verdict. See Meyer v. State, 89 Fla. 261, 103 So. 630 and Smith v. State, 129 Fla. 388, 176 So. 506.
The sixth question is no more than a restatement of the other questions presented.
So the judgment should be, and is, affirmed.
So ordered.
CHAPMAN, C. J., TERRELL and ADAMS, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Middleton v. State, 426 So. 2d 548 (Fla. 1982)…ned or otherwise acknowledged by the defendant. See Annot., 23 A.L.R.2d 919 (1952). Appellant argues that this rule should apply to the reading of a transcription of a defendant’s oral statements since this Court said in Haines v. State, 158 Fla. 9, 27 So. 2d 414 (1946), that reading a defendant’s statement to the jury is equivalent to introducing the written document into evidence. The state responds by arguing that the stenographer was allowed to read his notes to refresh his memory. Although we do not ag…
-
Williams v. State, 185 So. 2d 718 (Fla. 3d DCA 1966)…582. A written confession is admissible in evidence although it is not signed by the Defendant, so long as the Defendant reads the statement and adopts it as his own. See: Patterson v. State, 1946, 157 Fla. 304, 25 So. 2d 713; Haines v. State, 1946, 158 Fla. 9, 27 So. 2d 414. However, an oral statement transcribed by a third party which is not read to or adopted by the Defendant is inadmissible in evidence. See: Jenkins v. State, 35 Fla. 737, 18 So. 182. [*720] Therefore, the conviction here under review…
Authorities Cited
- Robertson v. State, 94 Fla. 770 (Fla. 1927)
- Triplett v. Brevard Props., Inc., 94 Fla. 869 (Fla. 1927)
- Smith v. State, 129 Fla. 388 (Fla. 1937)
- Meyer v. State, 89 Fla. 261 (Fla. 1925)