STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
RANDALL L. HARTUNG AND KELLY POTTS, APPELLEES
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The Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal addresses whether a state attorney must personally hear witness testimony to sign an information charging a felony. The court holds that the state attorney need not personally hear the testimony, and may instead rely on sworn testimony provided via affidavits, depositions, or other recorded forms.
The court held that a state attorney need not personally hear witness testimony. Instead, witnesses may be sworn before any authorized oath administrator, and their sworn testimony may be documented through affidavits, depositions, video tapes, or electronic recordings. The state attorney may then receive and consider such recorded testimony and properly certify under Rule 3.140(g) that he has "received testimony under oath from the material witness or witnesses."
[1] A state attorney or designated assistant may rely on sworn testimony of material witnesses that is documented or evidenced stenographically or electronically, such as in…
[2] Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.140(g) does not require a state attorney or designated assistant to personally administer oaths to or personally question material wi…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“whether, under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.140(g), a state attorney, or his designated assistant, who signs an information charging a felony offense must personally administer oath to, and personally question and see and hear the testimony of the material witness or witnesses upon which charges are based.”
The precise legal question framing the issue before the court.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceTwo separate criminal cases involved informations filed by state attorneys charging felony offenses. In each case, the trial courts dismissed the info…
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COWART, Judge.
The dispositive legal question in this case is whether, under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.140(g), a state attorney, or his designated assistant,1 who signs an information charging a felony offense must personally administer oath to, and personally question and see and hear the testimony of the material witness or witnesses upon which charges are based.
We answer the question in the negative and hold that the testimony of such witnesses may be sworn to before anyone authorized to administer oaths2 and their testimony under oath may be given out of the presence of the state attorney or his designated assistant, and that sworn testimony documented or evidenced stenographically or electronically in the form of affidavits, depositions, video tapes, magnetic tapes, or otherwise, and the evidence of the sworn testimony of such material witnesses may be “received” and considered by the state attorney or his designated assistant who may then properly certify that he has “received testimony under oath from the material witness or witnesses for the offense” as provided in Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.140(g).3
Accordingly, the order dismissing the in-formations in each of the two trial court cases (Hartung, 86-3303 and Potts, 88-1152) is reversed and this cause remanded for further proceedings.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
SHARP, C.J., and ORFINGER, J., concur. . See § 27.181(3), Fla.Stat. . See § 92.50(1), Fla.Stat. .See generally State v. Miller, 313 So. 2d 656 (Fla.1975); Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975); and State v. Williams, 362 So. 2d 678 (Fla. 4th DCA 1978), dismissed, 368 So. 2d 1376 (Fla.1979).
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103 (U.S. 1975)
- State v. Miller, 313 So. 2d 656 (Fla. 1975)
- State v. Williams, 362 So. 2d 678 (Fla. 4th DCA 1978)