Mock and a co-defendant were both arrested for two murders. Each confessed to some involvement in events of each death.⁷⁰

In the first case, based on his confession, Mock was arrested then alternatively charged as a principal to first degree murder, and with being an accessory after the fact to that murder.⁷¹ Mock's challenge to the use of his confession, based on Miranda, was denied. The jury heard his confession, and convicted him as an Accessory, but acquitted him of the homicide. The conviction was affirmed.⁷²

In the second case⁷³, police used the same confession, as the basis for his arrest. Mock was indicted for first degree murder. The State sought to use the confession in trial⁷⁴. Once again, Mock moved to suppress his confession, claiming the same Miranda violation he previously raised unsuccessfully in the first case. The legal issues were the same, and the law had not changed. But the trial Judge in the first case retired, and a new Judge presided over the second case. The suppression motion was granted.⁷⁵ The State proceeded to trial without the confession, and Mock was convicted of First degree murder.

70 Mock, and the co-defendant, each confessed involvement but (no surprise) fingered the other as the actual killer. The co-defendant hung himself in his jail cell while awaiting trial, thus precluding any measurable Miranda impact on that arrest/clearance.

71 Consolidated cases 91-11766 CFB & 92-8228 CFA (Brevard County, Florida)

72 Mock v State 625 So2d 1335 (Fla. 5th Ct. App., 1993)

73 Case 92-11647 CFA (Brevard County, Florida)

74 Mock's admissions about both murders were included within the same statement given to police.

75 The State took an interlocutory appeal of the suppression order to the same appellate Court which had affirmed Mock's conviction in the first case. The first trial judge's denial of Mock's suppression motion had been an issue in the appeal of the first conviction. Prosecutors assumed that since the suppression issues were the same in both cases, that the results on appeal would the same. They were wrong. Suppression of the confession was affirmed. State v Mock 626 So2d 704 (Fla. 5th Ct. App., 1993).