Sing v. WainwrightSing v. Wainwright
John and Frieda Sing, by their petition for a writ of habeas corpus, seek release from the state prison.
The sole question for determination is whether their conviction and subsequent imprisonment were accomplished by a denial of organic due process.
On March 1, 1957, the petitioners were found guilty of committing a non-capital
The instant petition for habeas corpus tenders the contention that at the original trial certain exhibits were allowed in evidence which allegedly had been obtained as the result of an unreasonable search. The petitioners point out that recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States have applied the provisions of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States condemning unreasonable searches to the conduct of state judicial proceedings. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081. Petitioners further contend that inasmuch as Mapp v. Ohio, supra, was announced subsequent to their conviction they should now have the benefit of the rule of that decision in this habeas corpus proceeding.
It should be noted in passing that Mapp v. Ohio, supra, was a direct attack on a judgment of the Ohio court by way of an appeal taken to the Supreme Court of the United States. It was not a collateral post-conviction assault on the state court judgment.
The basic weakness in the position of the petitioners, however, is the fact that the decision in Mapp v. Ohio, supra, added nothing whatever to the law of Florida. It created no new procedural right so far as the jurisprudence of this State is concerned. This Court long ago concluded that evidence obtained as the product of an unreasonable search is not admissible in a criminal proceeding. Florida has long recognized the so-called “exclusionary rule” regarding the inadmissibility of such evidence. Thurman v. State, 116 Fla. 426, 156 So. 484; Jackson v. State, 87 Fla. 262, 99 So. 548; Chacon v. State, Fla., 102 So.2d 578. While this Court has consistently excluded such evidence under
It should be recalled that we are now considering a post-conviction habeas corpus proceeding. It is well established that habeas corpus may not be substituted for a direct review by appeal. Where one has exercised his right of appeal he may not thereafter resort to habeas corpus to obtain a review of questions which were presented or which might have been raised in the course of his appeal. Collingsworth v. Mayo, Fla. 1948, 37 So.2d 696; State ex rel. Buckner v. Culbreath, 147 Fla. 560, 3 So.2d 380; Washington v. Mayo, Fla. 1955, 77 So.2d 620.
The claimed right which the petitioners now assert was available to them throughout the entire proceeding. It was the type of procedural protection which they were entitled to assert at the trial level, in the District Court and on up to
The writ of habeas corpus is denied.
It is so ordered.
ROBERTS, C.J., and DREW, O‘CONNELL and CALDWELL, JJ., concur.