¶1 To an information charging a felony, the accused, apparently without understanding its import, offered a plea of nolo contendere, upon which a judgment of conviction and sentence to the State Prison was rendered. It does not appear that the accused was represented by counsel when the plea was filed. A motion to vacate the judgment and for leave to withdraw the plea of nolo contendere was supported by an affidavit of the accused that he had “never heard before of the word nolo contendere and did not know or understand its meaning, but was under the impression and believed that when he entered a plea that he was entering a plea of not guilty and that he did not *105 “intend to plead guilty,” but is innocent. The motion was denied. This was harmful error. Judgment reversed.
112 Fla. 104
150 So 228
Fox v. State
Decided September 25, 1933
Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1933-09-25
Key passage — most relied on by later courts
“"To an information charging a felony, the accused, apparently without understanding its import, offered a plea of nolo contendere, upon which a judgment of conviction and sentence to the state prison was rendered. It does not appear that the accused was represented by counsel when the plea was filed. A motion to vacate the judgment and for leave to withdraw the plea of nolo contendere was supported by an affidavit of the accused that he had `never heard before of the word nolo contendere and did not know or understand its meaning, but was under the impression and believed that when he entered a plea that he was entering a plea of not guilty and that he did not intend to plead guilty,' but is innocent. The motion was denied. This was harmful error."”
quoted by 1 later decision, including 150 So. 2d 281 - Peel v. State
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1933-09-25
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently November 1976
5 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
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