STEVE ESPINOLA, 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.
Steve Espinola was convicted of operating a lottery and sentenced to three years imprisonment. On appeal, he challenged both the validity of the search warrant used to obtain evidence and the trial court's procedure in examining his alleged confession in the jury's presence. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed, finding the warrant properly issued and any procedural error regarding the confession harmless.
The search warrant was valid because the affidavit sufficiently described the premises as a unified operation and established probable cause that the dwelling was being used for gambling. Although the trial court departed from approved procedure by examining the confession circumstances in the jury's presence, this procedural error was harmless under the circumstances, as uncontradicted evidence showed the confession was free and voluntary.
“The affiant swore that he entered the shop and bought an interest in a lottery from the appellant who in affiant's presence recorded the number purchased and gave the pad on which the record was made to a woman who immediately carried it into the living quarters. So in the transaction the dwelling and the shop became linked.”
Establishes the factual basis for finding the residence and store part of a unified illegal operation, supporting probable cause for the search warrant.
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceOfficers executed a search warrant at appellant's premises, which consisted of a one-story block building containing a store and an attached frame str…
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 Violation Of Lottery Laws cases and more on FLexlaw
THOMAS, Justice.
The appellant was convicted of violating the law denouncing lotteries and was sentenced to , serve three years in. the penitentiary. Evidence obtained by the officers in the execution of a search warrant was introduced by the State in the trial after the trial judge denied a. motion to quash both the search warrant and the affidavit on which.it was based. The admissibility of this evidence prompted appellant’s , first question.
The appellant contends that' his home was searched unlawfully because there'was no statement' in the affidavit that any law was being violated there. This contention iá founded’ bn the claim that the -appellant’s home and place of business were so separated that even if a violation of law Was shown'‘to have been committed in the store “there' [was] no basis for any probability that there was any violation qf the law in the dwelling,” to quote from appellant’s .brief, , .
We do not so interpret the representations made to the court in the affidavit. The property was described as a one-story block .building to which a frame structure was attached; and the material and color of each were particularly described. The appellant operated a store in, the “block” building and lived in the frame •building. The affiant stated that the. appellant occupied and controlled, the “premises” which we understand included the living quarters in. the rear. The fact upon which probable cause of infraction of the law was based seems further to bring the store and residence within the same area of illegal operation. The affiant swore that he entered the shop and bought an interest in a lottery from the appellant who in affiant’s presence recorded the number purchased and gave the pad on which the record was made to a woman who immediately carried it into-the living, quarters'. So in the transaction the dwelling and the shop became linked.
We think the place, that is the part occupied as a residence as well ais the part, used for business, was sufficiently, described to meet the demands of Sec. 22 of the Declaration of Rights of the Florida Constitution,, F.S.A. and that the affidavit, considered as a whole, complied with the inhibition of Sec. 933.18, Florida Statutes 1953, and F.S.A., that no “warrant for the search of any * * * dwelling shall be issued except on sworn proof * * * of some credible witness that'he has reason to believe * * * that such dwelling is being used to carry on gambling * * In other words the contents of the affidavit established a “ ‘reasonable ground of suspicion, supported by circumstances .sufficiently strong- * * * to warrant a cautious man in the.belief’ ” that thé appellant .was engaged in gambliiig and that, therefore, probable cause upon which the warrant could -be based existed. Dumbra v. United States, 268 U.S. 435, 45 S.Ct. 546, 548, 69 L.Ed. 1032; Perez v. State, Fla., 81 So. 2d 201.
The appellant next complains that the trial court erred when he permitted in the presence of the jury the 'examination of witnesses relevant to the freeness and 'voluntariness of a purported confession; The Attorney General concedes in'his'brief that “it is always the' befet practice” for 'the court to determine the admissibility of a confession from testimony taken in the absiente of the jury, Williams v. State, 156 Fla. 300, 22 So. 2d 821. That is the procedure we have approved. But the State insists that failure so to conduct this phase of the trial would not necessarily constitute error and that there could have been no error in this case because no objection by the appellant was properly made and, besides, uncontradicted evidence established the fact that the confession was free and voluntary, Padgett v. State, 117 Fla. 75, 157 So. 186; Browne v. State, infra.
We have found no record of a request by appellant’s counsel that the jury be ex-cuséd while the circumstances surrounding the confession1 were being explored. After some testimony1' had been 'adduced about the appellant’s ' statements concerning his activities in the gambling field, the attorney for the appellant objected to further pursuit of the matter on the ground that “if they [were] trying to introduce a confession of any kind * *' *' the proper predicate had not been laid.” An objection of the same nature was made later. On neither occasion did the court make a ruling. After these objections, the attorney for the appellant cross-examined the State’s witnesses about the circumstances surrounding the appellant’s so-called confession. When, finally, the statement shown by the testimony to have been signed by the defendant was offered in evidence, "the attorney for the appellant objected on grounds .utterly foreign either to the one that, the jury had not been excluded during the preliminary inquiry or the one that the so-called, confession was not shown to have been free-and voluntary.
We do not have the statement here, therefore, we are not sure about its contents but we do have a transcript of the testimony and from the uncontradicted stories of the persons who witnessed the so-called confession and told of the manner in which it was procured, it appears that although the rule for determining the admissibility of such statements was not strictly observed, the error was not in all the circumstances' reflected in the record, prejudicial. Cornelius v. State, Fla., 49 So. 2d 332. The failure to follow approved procedure did not by the fact itself amount to reversible error, Browne v. State, 92 Fla. 699, 109 So. 811. Consequently, the judgment is—
Affirmed.
DREW, C. J., and HOBSON arid THOR-NAL, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Robles v. State, 188 So. 2d 789 (Fla. 1966)…inquiry, and does not contend that the admissions were involun [*795] tary. Mere failure to follow the recommended and safer course of an independent inquiry out of the jury’s presence is not in itself reversible error. Espinola v. State, Fla.1955, 82 So. 2d 601. The reason for such an independent inquiry is to prevent harmful error and to avoid the necessity for declaring a mistrial if it be determined that the admissions should not be admitted after the jury has heard them. Hearn v. State, Fla.1951, 54 So…
-
Brown v. State, 181 So. 2d 578 (Fla. 1st DCA 1965)…not constitute reversible error for another reason — the absence of a request by the defense counsel that the jury be excused during such investigation. This conclusion is based upon the decision of the Supreme Court of Florida in Espinola v. State, 82 So. 2d 601 (1955), holding that, in the absence of a request by the defendant’s counsel that the jury be excused while the circumstances surrounding a confession were being explored, and on a record which supported the admissibility of the confession, the tria…
-
Gregory v. State, 181 So. 2d 547 (Fla. 1st DCA 1966)…jury, in the absence of a request by defense counsel, that the jury be excused or objection thereto by counsel; and especially is this true when the record supports the voluntariness thereof and therefore its admissibility. Espinola v. State, Fla., 82 So. 2d 601; Smith v. State, 135 Fla. 835, 186 So. 203. In the trial court’s charges to the jury, no mention was made as to the voluntariness of the statement in question, but the court did instruct the jury that the credibility and weight of all the evidence…
Previewing 3 of 4 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Domenico Dumbra v. United States, 268 U.S. 435 (U.S. 1925)
- Cornelius v. State, 49 So. 2d 332 (Fla. 1950)
- Williams v. State, 156 Fla. 300 (Fla. 1945)
- Browne v. State, 92 Fla. 699 (Fla. 1926)
- Hobson Collier and Louise Collier v. City OF Homestead, 81 So. 2d 201 (Fla. 1955)
- Ossie Padgett and Wesley Hunter v. State, 117 Fla. 75 (Fla. 1934)