Appellant seeks reversal of an order of the criminal court of record denying his motion for relief under Criminal Procedure Rule 1, F.S.A. ch. 924 Appendix after an evidentiary hearing. This is a third appearance of this matter here. On March 9, 1965, this court affirmed the conviction of the appellant of the crimes of receiving and of concealing stolen property. Cole v. State, Fla.App.1965,
The ground of the defendant’s Rule 1 motion with which this appeal is concerned was that “Testimony was taken while appellant was involuntarily absent from court.” In the order appealed from the court found: “That the defendant, Joseph Cole, knowingly acquiesced in his attorney’s actions in having the Defendant excluded from the court room during portions of the trial involving the issue of insanity.”
The record reveals that the defendant was excluded from the court room while certain testimony was being given by his mother and by a doctor relating to his mental condition, and that such was done at the instance and request of the defendant’s attorney on the expressed theory that it was in the defendant’s interest that he not be present when such testimony was presented.
At the evidentiary hearing on the Rule 1 motion, on the issue of whether the defendant knowingly waived his right to be present at such times, or knowingly acquiesced in being absent, the evidence was not without conflict but there was ample evidence to support the above quoted finding of the trial judge.
The requirement of § 914.01 Fla. Stat., F.S.A., that “In all prosecutions for a felony the defendant shall be present: * * * (4) At all proceedings before the court when the jury is present,” is mandatory, and is equally applicable in such a prosecution whether the trial is before a jury or is before the court without a jury. However, the requirement is one which may be waived by a defendant in a noncapital felony case. See Mulvey v. State, Fla.1949,
We conclude, therefore, that reversible error has not been shown and that the order appealed from should be affirmed.
Affirmed.
