McDade v. State
Annotate this CaseAfter a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of several sexual offenses after his stepdaughter reported that Defendant had been sexually abusing her since she was ten years old. On appeal, Defendant argued that the trial court (1) abused its discretion by admitting into evidence two recordings of conversations Defendant had in his bedroom with his stepdaughter, asserting that the conversations should have been suppressed under Florida Statutes chapter 934’s statutory exclusionary rule; and (2) erred in concluding that the testimony of the stepdaughter’s boyfriend recounting statements that Defendant had raped her was non-hearsay. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded for a new trial, holding (1) chapter 934’s prohibition on intercepting certain oral communications applies to recordings of solicitation and confirmation of child sexual abuse when the recordings were surreptitiously made by the child in the bedroom of the accused, and therefore, the recordings should have been suppressed; and (2) the boyfriend’s testimony was hearsay and should have been excluded.
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