Police were under no obligation to re-read a Miranda warning to a hospitalized murder suspect who confessed to killing two people, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday, finding that the defendant’s rights were read to him when he was placed under arrest four weeks earlier.
The decision derailed killer Zachary Penna’s effort to get a new trial in the Nov. 19, 2015, killings of Wayne Dixon, 58, and Freddy Sanchez, 49, inside their Greenacres home.
Prosecutors said Penna later committed other crimes, including robbing a woman, kidnapping a co-worker and stabbing a police dog. He was convicted in 2019. The Fourth District Court of Appeal tossed the conviction in 2022 after determining that incriminating statements Penna made to Brevard County Deputy Michael Nettles should not have been presented to the jury.
“Despite the horrible facts underlying these convictions, we are compelled to reverse these convictions and remand for a new trial due to a violation of the defendant’s Miranda rights,” the appeals court ruled two years ago. “Because those elicited, incriminating responses … undermined the defendant’s insanity defense, the trial court’s errors [in allowing the jury to hear the statements] were not harmless.”
But the Florida Supreme Court took a different view, finding that police had already advised Penna of his rights to remain silent and have an attorney present during questioning. That warning came at the time of Penna’s arrest, four weeks before he spilled his guts to Nettles.
A key issue is that Penna “reinitiated contact” with police, giving his statements because he wanted to even though he was not being interrogated. That amounted to a waiver of the Miranda warnings he had been given previously, the court ruled.
The decision against Penna overturned a 2018 Supreme Court ruling in Shelly v. State, holding that police must remind defendants of their rights and give them again under identical circumstances.
That decision, the current court said, was “clearly erroneous.”
The Penna decision returns the case to the Fourth District, which must correct its finding that there was a Miranda violation and decide again whether Penna is entitled to a retrial.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457.
