Criminal Law Update January 5, 2009

Confessions in sex crimes case can be admissible even if the victim recants the accusations

The Florida Supreme Court has decided in State v. Hobbs that Florida Statute 92.565, the statute that allows confessions to come into evidence in sex crimes cases without the State first putting on evidence of the crime, is not limited to situations such as when the victim is "unavailable." Therefore, even if the reason the State cannot put on evidence of the crime because the victim has "taken back" her accusations, the State can still seek to introduce a defendant's confession. Typically, the State must put on evidence of each element of the crime (corpus delecti) before being allowed to introduce a defendant's confession, Florida Statute 92.565 creates an exception to that rule.

The accusations involve a teenage girl who was essentially living as her biological father's husband, and had been doing so for quite some time in three different states. She called the police, made allegations against her father, he subsequently confessed to the allegations, and then the girl later recanted the allegations.

Prior to trial, the State filed a motion to introduce the Defendant's confession pursuant to Florida Statute 92.565 in anticipation of the victim continuing the recantation of the allegations at trial. Recently before the hearing, the First District Court of Appeals had ruled that Florida Statute 92.565 could not be used to introduce confessions unless the victim was unavailable because of a "disability." The First District Court of Appeals reasoning was based upon the doctrine of "ejusdem generis." Basically, when even a list says it is not an exclusive list, if the list implies that only one category is meant to covered by the statute, then the court should limit the list to things in that category alone.

The State appealed to the Fifth District Court of Appeals who in turn decided for the State that the list of factors did not imply that only that category of factors should be considered and that the statute's plain meaning was that it was a non-exclusive list. The conflict between the two different District Courts of Appeals was certified to the Florida State Supreme Court, and the Florida Supreme Court again sided with the State.

William Jay, prior to joining Carsten and Ladan, was the trial prosecutor for the State of Florida.