JOE FINLEY
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA
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Joe Finley was convicted of receiving stolen property belonging to Saffold Brothers Produce Company and sentenced to the penitentiary. On appeal, he challenges the variance between the corporate name alleged in the information and the evidence presented, and contests the admission of his confessions. The Florida Supreme Court affirms the conviction.
The conviction is affirmed. The variance between the alleged and proven corporate name does not warrant reversal because the allegations and proof were in substantial correspondence, Finley suffered no prejudice in his defense, and the objection was raised too late. The admission of the oral confession constitutes at most harmless error. The evidence was ample and sufficient to support the verdict.
“We are convinced from the whole record however, that the defendant was in no way embarrassed in his defense by reason of such proof.”
Establishes that despite the variance in the corporate name between the information and evidence, the defendant suffered no prejudice and the objection was therefore untimely.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceFinley was charged with receiving stolen property knowing it to be stolen. The property allegedly belonged to Saffold Brothers Produce Company, a corp…
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Appellant was convicted on an information charging that he did receive stolen property knowing it to be stolen and that said property was the property of Saffold Brothers Produce Company, a corporation. He was sentenced to a term in the State Penitentiary and prosecutes this appeal to reverse that judgment.
It is first contended that the judgment should be reversed because the information alleges that the property stolen was the property of a designated corporation while the proof fails completely to prove such ownership.
It is quite true that the information alleges that the property belonged to “Saffold Brothers Produce Company, a corporation” while the evidence shows that it belonged to “Saffold Brothers Company, a corporation,” “Saffold Produce Company,” “Saffold Brothers or his Company” or some other similar designation. We are convinced from the whole record however, that the defendant was in no way embarrassed in his defense by reason of such proof. There was no objection raised to it during the trial; the appellant did not move to strike it nor was there a motion for directed verdict because of insufficiency of the evidence. We think the allegations and the proof were in substantial correspondence and that the objection comes too late at this time.
It appears that an oral and a written confession were admitted in evidence which were substantially identical. Before admitting the written confession an investigation was conducted in the absence of the jury to determine its admissibility of the oral confession. The second question assigns this as error.
The oral confession was made to J. B. Saffold one of the owners of the corporation from which the goods were stolen. The written confession was made to D. D. Stevens, a police officer. Both confessions were made at the jail soon after the arrest of defendant. It is admitted that the proper in*396vestigation was made in the absence of the jury before the written confession was introduced. The objection raised here to the admission of the oral confession was not raised in the lower court. At any rate under the facts shown, it could amount to nothing more than harmless error.
In this connection, appellant relies on McNabb v. United States of America and Anderson v. United States of America, decided March 1, 1943, by the Supreme Court of the United States, not yet reported.
We have examined these cases and find that they were decided on other than constitutional grounds guaranteeing fair and impartial trial and prescribe a rule of decision for the federal courts that we are not bound by and do not elect to follow. The confessions in those cases were also extracted under circumstances entirely different from those involved in the case at bar and for that reason, are not applicable.
The only other question is whether or not the evidence is sufficient to sustain the verdict and judgment.
We find that there was ample legal evidence to support the judgment and we find no showing whatever that the jury was controlled by consideration outside the evidence. In this situation, there is no basis for a new trial.
Affirmed.
BUFORD, C. J., BROWN and ADAMS, JJ., concur.
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Singer v. State, 109 So. 2d 7 (Fla. 1959)…ion that the instant case should not be governed by the rule in the federal courts as discussed in Mallory v. United States and McNabb v. United States, supra. And we find that we have reached the same conclusion previously in Finley v. State, 1943, 153 Fla. 394, 14 So. 2d 844. In that case the oral and written confessions of the defendant, made in the jail soon after arrest, were admitted into evidence. In arguing that the evidence was inadmissible the defendant in Finley v. State, supra, relied upon McNab…
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Leach v. State, 132 So. 2d 329 (Fla. 1961)…aguire, Evidence of Guilt, Sections 4.001 and 4.002; Crooker v. People of State of California, 357 U.S. 433, 77 S.Ct. 1287, 2 L.Ed.2d 1448. We ourselves have disposed of this contention adversely to the position of the appellants in Finley v. State, 153 Fla. 394, 14 So. 2d 844, and more recently in Singer v. State, Fla., 109 So. 2d 7. With reference to certain admissions amounting to confessions which were made to the law enforcement officers, the appellants contend that the officers did not warn them in a…
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Sie Dawson v. State, 139 So. 2d 408 (Fla. 1962)…this distinguishing aspect, we did announce our position in Leach and Smith, supra, to the effect that McNabb is not considered by us to be controlling in Florida. In so doing we reaffirmed the position which we had earlier taken in Finley v. State, 153 Fla. 394, 14 So. 2d 844, and Singer v. State, Fla.1959, 109 So. 2d 7. After a comprehensive analysis of the totality of the circumstances we fail to find here present evidence of coercive or compulsive pressures sufficient to depress Dawson into a state of…
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