ARTHUR SOSNOWSKY, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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.
Incriminating statements elicited by a government agent after the defendant has retained counsel and been indicted are inadmissible in evidence.
[1] Incriminating statements elicited by a government agent after a defendant has invoked the Sixth Amendment right to counsel are inadmissible.
[2] Statements made by a defendant to an undercover informant, even if the government's purpose is to investigate an unrelated crime, are inadmissible if the defendant has in…
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 intelligenceThe appellant, represented by counsel, solicited an undercover officer to commit murder. The trial court admitted taped conversations of this solicita…
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 Incriminating Statements cases and more on FLexlaw
KLEIN, J.
We reverse appellant’s conviction of attempted second degree murder because the court erred in admitting appellant’s conversations in which he solicited an undercover officer to kill the victim and another witness. These conversations, which were made after he was arrested and had retained counsel, violated appellant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
While appellant was an inmate following his arrest for attempted second degree murder, he tried to arrange, through a cellmate, to have the victim and a witness killed. Through the cellmate appellant was placed in touch with an undercover officer who was represented to be a hit man, and solicited the officer to commit murder. Although the solicitation was not the charge in this trial, the trial court, over appellant’s objection, admitted taped conversations involving the solicitation and alleged killings of the victim and witness by the hit man.
In Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 (1964), the Court held that incriminating statements elicited by a government agent outside the presence of counsel cannot be admitted in evidence. United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 100 S.Ct. 2183, 65 L.Ed.2d 115 (1980), interpreted Massiah to require suppression of statements made to a jail-house informant who was placed by the state in the same cell as the defendant and instructed to be alert to any incriminating statements made by the defendant. See also U.S. v. Terzado-Madruga, 897 F. 2d 1099 (11th Cir.1990) (court suppressed statements by a defendant to an undercover informant, even though the government’s alleged purpose was to investigate an unrelated crime not involving the defendant.)
Because appellant was represented by counsel, his statements to the undercover officer were not admissible. Neither was appellant’s gun, which was discovered through these statements. We find no merit to the other issues raised, except for the issue arguing that the solicitation became a feature of the trial, but that issue is now moot.
Reversed for a new trial.
TAYLOR and DAMOORGIAN, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Sosnowsky v. State, 72 So. 3d 818 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011)…his sentence in the attempted murder case. At sentencing in this case, the attempted murder conviction was included in the scoresheet computation. Later, the conviction in the second degree murder case was reversed on appeal. See Sosnowsky v. State, 989 So. 2d 686 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008). When that case was remanded to the circuit court, the state nolle prossed the charges. Because appellant was sentenced concurrently with the sentence in the reversed case, and because the record does not “conclusively demonstrat…
Authorities Cited
- Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (U.S. 1964)
- United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264 (U.S. 1980)
- United States v. Terzado-Madruga, 897 F.2d 1099 (11th Cir. 1990)