NOEL NOGUES, APPELLANT,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Noel Nogues, a former Miami police officer, was convicted of perjury for denying under oath that he attended a meeting to plan an extortion scheme. The Florida Third District Court of Appeal reversed the conviction, holding that the State failed to meet the stringent evidentiary requirements for perjury prosecution, which require testimony from two witnesses or one witness plus independent corroborating circumstances of equal weight.
The conviction is reversed because the State failed to satisfy the statutory requirement for perjury prosecutions. A perjury conviction requires either testimony from two witnesses or testimony from one witness plus independent and corroborating circumstances of equal weight with another witness's testimony. Here, only Orrett testified about the alleged false statement, his testimony was undermined by another witness, and the offered corroboration (testimony about a second meeting) was not equivalent to a second perjury witness.
[1] A conviction for perjury requires proof beyond the testimony of a single witness.
[2] The falsity of a statement in a perjury case must be proven by the testimony of two witnesses or by the testimony of one witness corroborated by independent evidence of e…
Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“a verdict of conviction in a perjury case must have for its support something more than the testimony of one witness”
Establishes the fundamental evidentiary requirement for perjury convictions under Florida law
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceNogues, a former City of Miami police officer, was charged with making a false statement under oath during an investigation of an extortion scheme rel…
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PER CURIAM.
We grant the State’s motion for rehearing, withdraw our prior opinion, and substitute the following opinion in its place.
Noel Nogues appeals from a conviction on one count of perjury. For the reasons that follow, we reverse.
Nogues, a former City of Miami police officer, was charged with making a false statement under oath. The statement was allegedly made during a formal investigation of an extortion scheme directed at other officers and related to the “Miami River Cops” scandal. In that statement, Nogues denied that he was present at a meeting between George Fonte, Charles Orrett, Armando Garcia, and Dagoberto Garcia at the defendant’s house, held to discuss extorting money from one of them. Nogues asserted that such a meeting had “never occurred,” and that he was “never present in any of that stuff.”
To prove its perjury case against No-gues, the State relied on the testimony of Charles Orrett, a Metro-Dade police officer who had agreed to cooperate with State and federal authorities. Orrett testified at trial that Nogues had indeed met with other police officers at his house to plan an extortion scheme.
This testimony was not legally sufficient to establish the crime of perjury. It is a well-established principle of law that “a verdict of conviction in a perjury case must have for its support something more than the testimony of one witness.” Yarbrough v. State, 79 Fla. 256, 83 So. 873, 874 (1920). “To convict of the crime of perjury, the offense must be proved by the oaths of two witnesses, or by the oath of one witness, and by other independent and corroborating circumstances, which is deemed of equal weight with another witness.” Id. (citations omitted). See also Rader v. State, 52 So. 2d 105, 108 (Fla.1951) (“The falsity of the material matter sworn to must be proved by the oaths of two witnesses, or by the oath of one witness and other independent and corroborating circumstances which are of equal weight with the testimony of another witness.”); Wells v. State, 270 So. 2d 399 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972) (same), cert. denied, 277 So. 2d 533 (Fla.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1024, 94 S.Ct. 449, 38 L.Ed.2d 316 (1973).
Orrett was the only witness who testified regarding the alleged meeting that was the subject of the perjury charge. His testimony about that meeting was not corroborated by any other witness, nor were there any independent and corroborating circumstances of equal weight with the testimony of another witness. In fact, Orrett’s testimony was undermined by another witness who supported Nogues’ denial that he had anything to do with such a meeting.
As “independent and corroborating circumstances,” the State offers the testimo ny of Reggie Caprio, who stated under oath that a second meeting was held'to discuss the first meeting, and to chastise Nogues for setting up that first meeting.1 Whatever suspicions that testimony may raise about the veracity of Nogues’ denial that he had participated in that first meeting, the testimony was not corroboration of Orrett’s testimony that was equivalent to the testimony of a second perjury witness. Orrett’s testimony is therefore the only foundation for the perjury conviction; because that testimony is legally insufficient the perjury conviction cannot stand. See Womack v. State, 283 So. 2d 573 (Fla. 4th DCA 1973).
The judgment of conviction and sentence are reversed and this cause is remanded with directions to discharge the defendant.
REVERSED.
. The perjury charge that related to the second meeting ended in a judgment of acquittal for Nogues.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Yarbrough v. State, 79 Fla. 256 (Fla. 1920)
- Rader v. State, 52 So.2d 105 (Fla. 1951)
- Wells v. State, 270 So. 2d 399 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972)
- Donlon et ux. v. Internal Revenue Serv., 414 U.S. 1024 (U.S. 1973)
- Jones et ux. v. Credit Bureau of Nashville, 414 U.S. 1024 (U.S. 1973)
- Wells v. State, 277 So. 2d 533 (Fla. 1973)
- McCAUSLAND v. State, 277 So. 2d 533 (Fla. 1973)
- Womack v. State, 283 So. 2d 573 (Fla. 4th DCA 1973)