82 Fla. 83 | Fla. | 1921
Upon her plea of “guilty” of the offence of embezzlement of the sum of $650.00, in money charged in an information filed against her in the Criminal Court of Record for Duval County, the defendant below was sentenced to fine or imprisonment in the county jail, and seeks review of this judgment by the writ of error.
The defendant below, before sentence imposed, moved the Court to set aside her plea of “guilty” and to permit her to interpose the plea of “not guilty” in its stead, which motion asserted that the defendant to be ready at any time, immediately or hereafter to stand trial on said charge. Attached to the said motion and filed therewith was the following affidavit:
“Personally appeared before me, the undersigned authority, C. M. Clay, who, after being being duly sworn, deposes and says: that upon the 22nd day of June, A.D. 1920, information was filed in the Criminal Court of Record in
This motion was denied by the Court, the ruling was duly excepted to, and it is assigned as error. Under the circumstances as disclosed in the above affidavit this ruling was error.
In the case of Pope v. State, 56 Fla. 81, 47 South. Rep. 487, it was held that the law favors trials on the merits, and if the discretion of the trial court is abused in denying leave to withdraw a plea of guilty and to go to trial on the merits, the Appellate Court may interfere. The plea of guilty to a serious criminal charge should be freely and voluntarily made and entered by the accused, without a semblance of coercion, and without fear or duress of any kind, and the accused should be permitted to withdraw a plea of guilty entered unadvisedly when application therefor is duly made in good faith and sustained by proofs, and proper offer is made to go to trial on a plea of not guilty.
For the error found, the judgment of the Court below is hereby reversed at the cost of, Duval County.