Anderson v. State

215 So. 2d 618
District Court of Appeal of Florida·Decided November 19, 1968·No. 1639, 1641·Published·Cited by 20 cases

Opinion

215 So.2d 618 (1968)

Hubert J. ANDERSON, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Henry SHIVERS, III, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Nos. 1639, 1641.

District Court of Appeal of Florida. Fourth District.

November 19, 1968.

Lavon Ward, Public Defender, and Patrick O'Neal, Asst. Public Defender, Fort Lauderdale, for appellants.

Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Charles W. Musgrove, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellee.

BARNS, PAUL D., Associate Judge.

Each appellant has appealed pro se from adjudications of guilt and sentence for robbery. We affirm.

*619 After the entry of the pro se appeals, the trial court adjudged each defendant an indigent and appointed the public defender to represent each defendant in the prosecution of his appeal.

The defendants' attorney on this appeal has failed and neglected to state in his brief with his point argued any assignment of error giving rise to the point, as is his duty in compliance with F.A.R. 3.7, subd. f(4), 32 F.S.A., which rule requires that "Specific assignments of error from which the points argued arise should be stated * * *." In this case, this omission might be explained since none of his assignments of error are directed to any judicial ruling. Reversal on appeal is not to be expected in the absence of judicial error of the lower court assigned, stated and argued in appellants' brief. Professional advocacy requires that the judicial errors relied on for reversal should be stated in the brief with points argued even in the absence of a rule requiring it. Defective assignments of error are amendable.

The record has been read and it shows that Poismans, at gun-point, was forced into a Cadillac car by the defendant Shivers and forced to sit in the front seat between Shivers and the defendant Anderson, who drove. The back seat was occupied by four other Negroes. Then the car was driven about a mile to near a pawn shop and Poismans was robbed of twenty-five dollars and two rings forced from his fingers. His brown suitcase was also taken after the contents were thrown out into the rain. The defendant Anderson threatened him with a knife held against his throat, and the other four participated in the robbery in attempts to overcome the difficulty of removing the rings.

Poismans called the police by telephone, to whom he reported the robbery, and they took Poismans to jail to give him lodging for the night as he was a stranger in town, wet from the rain, and without dry clothing or money. Next morning, he returned to near the pawn shop where he had been robbed. While there, he saw two colored men enter the pawn shop with a brown suitcase. He then suspected the two men as his robbers, and went to a filling station and telephoned the police, after which the two suspects entered the same station. Then the police arrived and Poismans identified the two defendants as his robbers, and they were arrested by the officers.

Twenty minutes before trial, Poismans was asked to look into a jail cell where the defendants Anderson and Shivers were confined with two others and asked, "Can you identify them again", and stated, "We cannot arrest people if you are not very sure they are the two people." The defendant's attorney was not called or notified of this identification, nor were the defendants advised of it or given any warning of their rights to the assistance of an attorney on that occasion.

Appellants' attorney, the public defender, relies on United States v. Wade, 1967, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149, and Gilbert v. California, 1967, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178, for reversal. These two cases were considered by the Supreme Court, together with Stovall v. Denno, 1967, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199. All three cases were decided on June 12, 1967. Wade and Gilbert were on direct appeal; Stovall was a habeas corpus case collaterally involving the same question as Wade and Gilbert; Stovall construed and determined the extent to which Wade and Gilbert should be applied, and held that they should be prospectively limited because the two cases established new rules of law, and not the mere enunciation and application of prior law as to the right of counsel at a police lineup for purposes of identification.

WADE CASE: On certiorari, the United States Supreme Court (in reviewing Wade v. United States, 5 Cir.1966, 358 F.2d 557) held: where the in-court *620 identification of Wade was by two prospective prosecuting witnesses who initially identified Wade as the bank robber at a police lineup after indictment and after seeing Wade on that occasion and before the lineup in custody of an officer, the lineup identification occurred on May 12, after the court had appointed counsel for Wade on April 26, 1965, and Wade was deprived of assistance of counsel at the lineup, a critical stage in his prosecution, it was error to deny defense counsel's motion to strike the courtroom identification, but the courtroom identification should not be excluded if based on observation of the accused other than the lineup identification when "a per se rule of exclusion of courtroom identification would be unjustified."

Police Lineup Identification — Courtroom Identification

Attorney Not Notified

The rule to be applied as stated in Wade is:

"We come now to the question whether the denial of Wade's motion to strike the courtroom identification by the bank witnesses at trial because of the absence of his counsel at the lineup required, as the Court of Appeals held, the grant of a new trial at which such evidence is to be excluded. We do not think this disposition can be justified without first giving the Government the opportunity to establish by clear and convincing evidence that the in-court identifications were based upon observations of the suspect other than the lineup identification. See Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, 378 U.S. 52, 79, n. 18, 695, 84 S.Ct. 1594, 1609, 12 L.Ed.2d 678. Where, as here, the admissibility of evidence of the lineup identification itself is not involved, a per se rule of exclusion of courtroom identification would be unjustified. See Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341, 60 S.Ct. 266, 267, 84 L.Ed. 307. A rule limited solely to the exclusion of testimony concerning identification at the lineup itself, without regard to admissibility of the courtroom identification, would render the right to counsel an empty one. The lineup is most often used, as in the present case, to crystallize the witnesses' identification of the defendant for future reference. We have already noted that the lineup identification will have that effect. The State may then rest upon the witnesses' unequivocal courtroom identification, and not mention the pretrial identification as part of the State's case at trial.

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Anderson v. State, 215 So. 2d 618 (Fla. Ct. App. 1968).

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