Florida/Georgia Personal Injury & Workers Compensation

...Give if The law requires the judge to decide if the alleged applicable statement is material, and I have decided that it is F.S. material. Therefore, you will not further concern yourself 837.011(3) with this issue. [Page A-64] *1242 Note to An instruction on recantation should be given when Judge raised as a defense. See F.S. 837.07; Carter v. State, 384 So.2d 1255 (Fla. 1980). Explanation of amendment: The instruction begins on page 175 of the manual. "F.S. 837.07" is added to the note....

...witness gained nothing by giving the false statement, 3) no one was prejudiced as a result of the false statement, and 4) the proceedings were not affected by the false testimony. In 1990, ten years after the Carter decision, the Legislature enacted section 837.07, which provides: 837.07....

...t to be false in the same continuous proceeding or matter, and: (1) The false statement has not substantially affected the proceeding; or (2) Such admission is made before it has become manifest that such false statement has been or will be exposed. § 837.07, Fla....

GROSS, J. The issue in this case is whether criminal defendants charged as principals in the perjury of another are entitled to the benefits of the defense contained at section 837.07, Florida Statutes (Supp.1990), when the actual perjurer recants his testimony....

...st degree and may be charged, convicted, and punished as such, whether he is or is not actually or constructively present at the commission of such offense. Id.; see also Potts v. State, 430 So.2d 900, 902 (Fla.1982). In 1990, the legislature passed section 837.07, which provided for recantation as a defense to perjury: Recantation shall be a defense to any prosecution for perjury or false statement only if the person making the false statement admits such statement to be false in the shme continuous proceeding or matter, and: (1) The false statement has not substantially affected the proceeding; or (2) Such admission is made before it has become manifest that such false statement has been or will be exposed. (Emphasis added). Section 837.07 makes the defense applicable to “any” prosecution for perjury....

...Under these rules of construction, “any'prosecution for perjury” includes prosecutions for perjury by way of the “principals” statute, section 777.011. Therefore, Drinks’s recantation precludes the perjury charges in this case. This interpretation of section 837.07 is consistent with the application of the defense prior to the enactment of the statute....

...No one was prejudiced by his false statement and the proceedings were not affected thereby. His subsequent testimony was consistent with the recanted version. Under these circumstances, the fear of being caught should not vitiate the defense of recantation. Carter, 384 So.2d at 1257-58 (footnote omitted). If anything, section 837.07 is an expansion of the common law defense. The statutory defense operates when either “[t]he false statement has not substantially affected the proceeding” or when “[s]uch admission is made before it has become manifest that such false statement has been or will be exposed.” § 837.07(1), (2). CaHer appears to have required that the underlying proceedings not be affected for the defense to be operative. Section 837.07 allows the recantation defense even where the underlying proceeding has been “substantially affected,” as long as the admission came before exposure or threat of exposure of the perjury. The effect of a valid recantation under section 837.07 is the same as that under the common law defense....