### D ISTRICT 

### C OURT 

### O F 

### A PPEAL 

### O F 

### T HE 

### S TATE 

### O F 

### F LORIDA

F OURTH D ISTRICT

RICHARD CARLTON JOHNS T ON
, Appellant,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA
, Appellee

.

No. 4D 22

- 1790

[ March 1, 2023 ]

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, Martin County ; Sherwood Bauer, Jr. , Judge; L.T. Case No.

21000174CFAXMX

.

Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Elijah Giuliano, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Sorraya M. Solages

Jones, Assista nt Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

W ARNER , J.

Appellant, Richard Carlton Johnston, timely appeals his judgment of conviction and sentence for two counts of resisting an officer without

violence. He raises five issues: 1) whether funda mental error occurred because the jury could have issued a non

- unanimous verdict for the two counts of resisting arrest; 2) whether fundamental error occurred because the evidence did not show that appellant was guilty of any offense; 3)

whether cumulative error occurred in the prosecutor’s cross

- examination of appellant and closing argument, necessitating a new trial; 4) whether fundamental error occurred because appellant was entitled to be tried

before a twelve

- person jury; and 5) whether fundamental err or occurred in sentencing because the court took on the role of the prosecutor in questioning appellant. We affirm as to all issues raised.

All of the charges brought against appellant are based on two encounters with Martin County Sheriff deputies, both in the early morning on February 21, 2021. He was charged with six counts

— two counts of2 battery on a law enfor cement officer

, 1 two counts of resisting an officer

with violence

, 2 disorderly intoxication, and giving a false name while

arrested or detained. The State proceeded to trial on all counts except disorderly intoxication.

The S tate’s case consisted of testimony from the four officers involved

in the two interactions with appellant, and pictures of appellant taken after

the altercations. The four officers’ testimony was largely consistent as to

the evening’s events

.

Deputy Ardon and Deputy Elliott were called to a dist urbance at a bar. When they arrived, Deputy Ardon observed appellant walking across the street with significant blood coming out of his nose. Appellant said he had been punched at the bar. The deputies asked him to sit and wait for fire rescue. Deputy Ardon asked appellant his name, and he gave a name and

date of birth which both later proved to be incorrect.

In the meantime, Deputy Elliot t went to talk with the bar’s bouncer to determine what had happened. After speaking with the bouncer and other bar patrons, Deputy Elliott learned that appellant had been causing problems at the bar and had been trying to fight the bouncer. Deputy

Elliott concluded that the bouncer hit appellant in an act of self

- defense

. The b ouncer stated that the ba r wanted Deputy Elliott to issue appellant a trespass warning

.

As all of this was unfolding, fire rescue took appellant to a hospital emergency room. The sheriff deputies received a 911 call from the ER that a person (appellant) had run away from the ho spital. A deputy who had not been at the bar scene was the first to reach the hospital and found appellant crouched in a fetal position down the road from the hospital.

The deputy asked appellant why he was running away from the hospital, and appellant r esponded by ask ing the deputy why he was hitting him.

The officers from the bar incident , Deput ies Ardon and Elliott

, and a fourth deputy arrived shortly thereafter.

Appellant kept asking the deputies why they were hitting him. Because of his prior injuries as well as his bizarre behavior in contending that the deputies were hitting him, they handcuffed him to take him back to the hospital. At some point, the deputies recovered appellant’s wallet and

1 Count I was for battery on Deputy Ardon and Count II was for battery on Deputy

Elliott.

2 Count V was for resisting Deputy Ardon with violence and Count VI was for resisting Deputy Elliott with violence

.3 discovered that he had give n them the wrong name and date of birth at

the bar. Deputy Ar d on testified that Deputy Elliot t placed appellant under arrest, although he did not state what the charge was.

Appellant began flailing his body

, making it difficult for the officers to

carry him. They had to put him down

, and he began hitting his head on the asphalt. They moved him to a grassy area. Appellant looked right at Deputy Ardon and said

, “are you trying me” and then kicked Deputy Ardon in the back of his leg. Deputy Ardon was not injured.

The deputies finally got appellant into a patrol vehicle and drove him back to the ER. At some point appellant lost consciousness , but h e regained it by the time he was in the hospital.

Inside the ER, Deputies Ardon and Elliott move d appellant onto a gurney. They laid him on his back and removed the handcuffs. Appellant

continued to flail and became erratic. They were attempting to handcuff

him again to the gurney when appellant slapped Deputy Elliott in the face with an open hand. Deputy Elliott slapped him back in the face. Appellant also spit blood at the deputies. He was then sedated, and the incident

ended.

All of the deputies testified that , except for the slap b y Deputy Elliott,

none of the deputies hit appellant or drop p ed him . They testified that they

had tried to prevent appellant from injuring himself.

Appellant’s version of the events was dramatically different than that of

the officers. He testified that he was in a parking lot near the b ar after eating at a resta urant in the area. The bouncer was also outside in the parking lot with his buddies. Appellant testified that h e was arrang ing for

a ride home with a girl who worked at the bar

. The bouncer apparently did not like that, approached appellant, and hit him in the nose. After being punched

, a ppellant testified he was approached by law enforcement, perhaps Deputy Ardon. He told the officer he had been punched, and then

a few minutes later an ambulance arrived. He denied giving the deputy a

false name and birth date.

Appellant testified that he was in a daze at the hospital and decided to leave. He informed hospital staff that he declined treatment, not wanting a large bill. He wal ked out into the parking lot, trying to find a ride home. He was approached by a deputy who wrenched his arm. When appellant tried to grab his phone, the deputy slammed him to the ground. His phone cracked, and he lost consciousness.4 When he regained consciousness , other deputies were there. The deputies handcuffed his hands behind his back. They then picked him up, carrying him “like a hog.” The deputies brought him to a grassy area and dropped him face down onto the grass. Appellant was uncomfortable lying on the ground with a blade of grass poking into his eye. He tried to adjust his body to breathe better twice, and Deputy Ardon pushed him back down. The deputies flipped appellant over so that he lay on the

handcuffs. They kicked, pu shed

, and jabbed him, and at one point they dropped appellant in the parking lot onto the asphalt.

Appellant said he lost consciousness and woke up in a hospital bed. He has some memory of Deputy Elliot t striking him in the face. He remembered telling D eputy Elliot t that he would press charges against

him.

Appellant testified that he would never intentionally attack or strike an officer for any reason. He did not recall kicking Deputy Ardon or intentionally hitting Deputy Elliott.

After both the State and defense rested, the court denied appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal. The parties then proceeded to closing argument and jury deliberations. The jury returned a verdict for the

lesser

- included offense of resisting an officer without violenc e as to both resisting counts and not guilty as to the other charged offenses. The trial court entered judgment consistent with the verdict and sentenced appellant to one year in county jail for each count to run consecutively. Appellant thereafter filed this appeal.

Analysis

Did the P ossibility of a Non

- U nanimous V erdict

C onstitute F undament al E rror

The State charged appellant with two counts of resisting arrest with violence: one charge for doing violence to Deputy Ardon, the other for doing violence to Deputy Elliot t . In closing argument, the prosecutor argued appellant did violence or battery to Deputy Ardon when appellant

kicked him in his leg , and that a ppellant did violence or battery to Deputy

Elliot t when appellant slapp ed him in the ER. The jury returned a verdict of resisting arrest without violence on each charge.

Appellant contends that his two convictions for resisting an officer

without violence could have been the result of a non

- unanimous verdict

and fundamental error. He arrives at this contention by pointing to the5 record identifying four actions that he contends coul d have supported the lesser included resistance without violence, including his flailing at the officers outside the hospital, his altercation with them inside the hospital

, and spitting blood at them. Because the individual jurors each could have

credite d a different act of appellant which constituted the act of resisting, the verdict may not have been unanimous, which is a fundamental error.

“As a state constitutional matter, a criminal conviction requires a

unanimous verdict in Florida.” Shahgodary v. State , 336 So. 3d 8, 11 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022) (quoting Robinson v. State , 881 So. 2d 29, 30 (Fla. 1st DCA 2004) ) . “[J]urors ‘must unanimously agree that each element of the charged offense has been established beyond a reasonable doubt.’” Id. (quoting Per ry v. State , 10 So. 3d 695, 697 (Fla. 1st DCA 2009 ) ). “Thus,

‘where a single count embraces two or more separate offenses, albeit in violation of the same statute, the jury cannot convict unless its verdict is unanimous as to at least one specific act.’” Id. (emphasis supplied) (quoting Robinson , 881 So. 2d at 31). “An infringement upon a defendant’s right to a unanimous jury verdict can result in fundamental error.” Id. Appellant relies on Perley v. State , 947 So. 2d 672 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007)

, to
make h is “non

- unanimous verdict” argument , but that case is distinguishable. In Perley , a defendant was charged with one count of escape, but at trial the State presented two incidents which could have

constitute d the defendant attempting an escape. Id. at 674. The

defendant first ran from a vehicle after being stopped by the police , and

a fter being apprehended and taken to a hospital, he attempted to escape again. Id. During the trial

, the State informed the jury that it could convict

the defendant of es cape based upon either incident. Id.

On appeal, we concluded that fundamental error had occurred by “allowing the jury to deliberate on two separate instances of escape where [ the defendant] was only charged with one count of escape.” Id. “By allowing the State to tell the jury it could convict [ the defendant] for either instance of escape, the trial court compromised the jury’s ability to render

a unanimous verdict.” Id.

Similarly, in Chaffin v. State , 121 So. 3d 608 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013), we found tha t the defendant was entitled to a new trial on his conviction for tampering with evidence “because the State presented the jury with two separate incidents of tampering in support of one charge.” Id. at 615.

Based on Perley , this court held that a non

- unanimous verdict could have

resulted. Id. at 616; s ee also Shahgodary , 336 So. 3d at 1 3 (findin g fundamental error where S tate charged one count of violating an injunction for protection against domestic violence injunction

, but the6 prosecutor told t he jury that it could find the defendant guilty based upon any one of five different acts)

.

By contrast, in this case the State charged appellant with two counts of resisting with violence against two different deputies. The prosecutor argued to the jury that the resisting with violence charge involving Deputy Ardon was based upon appellant kicking him, and t he charge involving Deputy Elliot t was based on appellant slapping him. The prosecutor never argued that the jury could find appellant guilty based on any other act.

The mere possibility that a juror could look to some act other than the

one w hich the prosecutor argued to satisfy an element of the crime is

insufficient to warrant a reversal of a conviction. See

, e.g. , Charles v. State

, 311 So. 3d 283 , 287 (Fla. 2d DCA 2020)

. Where the State does not affirmatively advise the jury that it can convict using any number of acts as the essential element of the crime, the possibility of a non

- unanimous

verdict does not constitute fundamental error.

Here, appellant simply speculate s that the jury might have viewed other acts as resisting without violence. But the State never argued that any of those other acts constituted acts of resisting. Without more, there is no

fundamental error.

Appellant argues in the alternative that the two convictions for resisting violate double jeopardy, because the two convictions were part of a single criminal episode. He relies on Wallace v. State , 724 So. 2d 1176 (Fla. 1998)

. In that case, the supreme court held that where multiple officers

are i nvolved with attempting the arrest of one individual, “continuous resistance to the ongoing attempt to effect [the defendant’s] arrest constitutes a single instance of obstruction under section 843.01.” Id. at

1181.

Unlike Wallace , the two charges of res isting against appellant were not
the result of one continuous resistance

. Appellant kicked Deputy Ardon while being restrained outside the hospital. He then lost consciousness, as even he admitted, and ended up in the hospital on a gurney when he slappe d Deputy Elliot t . Because the two events were separated both geographical ly and temporal ly

, the convictions on both charges d id not violate the double jeopardy prohibition. See Hayes v. State , 803 So. 2d 695, 699

– 705 (Fla. 2001)

.

Lawful Execution of a L egal Duty of the Officers7 “To prove the offense of resisting an officer without violence [pursuant

to section 843.02 , Florida Statutes (2020) ], the State had to present

evidence: (1) that [Officer Ardon and Officer Elliott] w[ere] engaged in the lawful execution of a legal duty and (2) that [ a ppellant]’s actions constituted obstruction or resistance of that duty.” Lu Jing v. State , 316 So. 3d 724, 730 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021) (citations omitted). “The threshold for establishing the commission of an o ffense under [section 843.02] is that the officer be in the ‘lawful execution’ of a ‘legal duty.’” C.E.L. v. State

, 995 So. 2d 558, 560 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008).

While appellant did move for judgment of acquittal, his arguments

below are not the same as his a rguments on appeal. Therefore, appellant

must show fundamental error. Fundamental error occurs when the

evidence is insufficient to show that a crime has been committed. See F.B.

v. State , 852 So. 2d 226 , 230 (Fla. 2003) (“The second exception to the

re quirement that claims of insufficiency of the evidence must be preserved

occurs when the evidence is insufficient to show that a crime was committed at all.”); Young v. State , 141 So. 3d 161, 165 (Fla. 2013) (same).

Appellant argues that the deputies wer e not lawfully engaged in a legal duty when they brought him back to the emergency room for medical care because he had a right to decline medical care. See In re Guardianship of Browning , 568 So. 2d 4, 11 (Fla. 1990) (holding “a competent person has

the constitutional right to choose or refuse medical treatment, and that right extends to all relevant decisions concerning one’s health”). He concentrates his argument on whether the State presented evidence of a legal duty in which the officers were engaged . We conclude that sufficient

evidence showed a legal duty.

The State provided several grounds to show that the officers were exercising a legal duty. The first officer on the scene responded to a 911 call that a patient had run from the hospital. Res ponding to a 911 call is a legal duty of an officer. Francis v. State , 736 So. 2d 97, 99 n.1 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999). Further, the officer testified that when a call from a hospital is received, the officers must determine why the person is leaving the hospi tal. If the escapee was there pursuant to the Baker or Marchman Act, then he would not be free to leave the hospital. The officers considered appellant’s behavior to be bizarre, and he had observable injuries. For these reasons, they elected to return h im to the hospital. We conclude that the testimony sufficiently supports the legal duty of the officers at the time, even though no Baker Act custody was involved in this case.

In addition, Deputies Ardon and Elliot t arrived after having been investigati ng the bar incident. They had evidence from the bar that8 appellant had been the aggressor and committed a battery on the bouncer. They also were trying to confirm the name which he gave them, which

turned out was false. None of the deputies testified th at their investigation had concluded when they arrived at the hospital. Clearly, investigation of a crime is a legal duty of the deputies and required appellant’s detention

.

In Bush v. State , 295 So. 3d 179 (Fla. 2020), the court set forth the standard of review for the legal sufficiency of evidence:

The standard of review historically applied to a determination of the legal sufficiency of evidence to support a criminal conviction, at least where there is some direct evidence, is simply whether the State presented competent, substantial evidence to support the verdict. Tibbs v. State , 397 So. 2d 1120, 1123 (Fla. 1981); Spinkelink v. State , 313 So. 2d 666, 671 (Fla. 1975). To apply this standard to a criminal case, an appellate court must “view [ ] the evidence in the light most favorable to the State” and, maintaining this perspective, ask

whether “a rational trier of fact could have found the existence of the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Id. at 200 (alteration in original)

. Here, viewing the evidence in the State’s favor, we conclude that the evidence supported the jury’s findings. We

affirm.

Improper Prosecutorial Cross

- E xamination and Closing Argume nt

In his next issue on appeal

, appellant contends that the prosecuto r engaged in improper cross

- examination of appellant and made numerous improper statements in closing argument, necessitating a new trial. Most of the alleged errors were not objected to during cross

- examination or in closing argument. Therefore, to requ ire a new trial they must be fundamental error, meaning an error which reaches the validity of the trial such that a guilty verdict could not have been obtained without it. Cherfrere v. State , 277 So. 3d 611, 614 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019). The prosecutor’s cro ss

- examination and closing argument do not rise to that

level.

After appellant testified on direct examination that he was roughed up by the officers during the incident, the prosecutor commenced an aggressive cross

- examination of appellant. Appellant be came hostile and

accused the officers of a cover

- up, aided by the prosecutor filing charges against appellant. Appellant accused the officers of dishonesty. The exchanges got heated, and the prosecutor admitted that at times he was9 being sarcastic with h is questions, for which he apologized. Defense counsel’s objections were few and lack ed specificity, other than objecting to a few questions as argumentative or asking for speculation. As to those, we conclude that the court did not err in overruling tho se objections. This was a very tense situation with the appellant calling the prosecution witnesses dishonest and presenting himself as a victim. Perhaps the prosecutor may have been more aggressive than the tenets of professionalism should allow, but on this record we cannot conclude that

his cross

- examination vitiated the entire trial.

Similarly, defense counsel made very few objections in closing argument, necessitating a finding of fundamental error to warrant a new

trial. We cannot conclude that th e comments of the prosecutor collectively deprived appellant of a fair trial. Even if some comments were inappropriate, the comments do not warrant a new trial. See Varsam v.

State , 314 So. 3d 278 , 278 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021) ; see also Robinson v. State

, 211 So. 3d 59, 60 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017) (agreeing the S tate made several inappropriate comments during closing but concluding the “comments, both singularly and collectively, did not rise to the level of fundamental error”).

Challenge to Size of Jury

Ap pellant briefly argues that he was entitled to be convicted by a twelve

member jury rather than a six

- member jury under the Sixth and

Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. We have already held that a defendant is not entitled to a twelv e

- member jury in

Guzman v. State , 350 So. 3d 72 , 73 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022).

Sentencing Hearing

Finally, appellant contends he is entitled to a new sentencing proceeding, because the judge took on the role of a prosecutor in questioning him during the sente ncing hearing. We disagree.

At sentencing, appellant testified, apologizing for the court’s time and stating that he realized he sometimes had not “honored the position of authority,” telling the court that this was not the first time he had a resisting arrest conviction . He asked for leniency and for time served.

The court then asked the State if it had any evidence, and the
prosecutor listed mul tiple misdemeanors of which appellant had been convicted, including four convictions for resisting arrest, the same crimes for which he had been convicted in this case. The prosecutor noted the10 crimes for which the jury found him guilty would be his fifth and sixth crimes, and the prosecutor recommended a sentence of a year in jail for each count to be served consecutively.

The court stated that it was unaware of the four prior convictions and wanted to know why four convictions would not be “hugely signi ficant.”

The court wanted some explanation, such as whether they all arose from

one or two events. Appellant then stated that he thought they were double charged but he did not recall. The State was able to access the prior

convictions: one in Duval Co unty in 2012; one in Duval County in 2016; one in Martin County in 2017; and one in Savannah, Georgia in 2016. The

court then asked appellant whether he recalled these convictions

. Appellant said he thought he did, and he apologized for having the

convictions. The court commented that his apology had no meaning when he kept getting convicted of the same crime. Appellant then volunteered other unsettling events in his life occurring at the t ime of his prior convictions as a way of explanation.

The court also wanted to know more about the sentence on the 2017 Martin County c harge, which the State looked up. Appellant was convicted of resisting without violence and given a fifteen

- day sentenc e.

The court then addressed appellant

, telling him that being a repeat

offender most bothered the court at sentencing. After appellant volunteered more information about his belief that his rights had not been observed in some of these incidents, the cou rt commenced sentencing appellant, stating:

Believe it or not, the purpose for my discussions at sentencing, . . . is because I actually do try to find a reason to be generous in my sentence . . . One of the things that has always bothered me in sentenci ng . . . is when they do the same thing over and over again. . . . it’s just there’s no excuse

for it . .

. .

The court sentenced appellant to one

- year terms for each offense, to be served consecutively.

Appellant contends that the trial court abandoned neutrality while inquiring into his prior criminal convictions. He relies on this court’s

decision in P arr v. State , 247 So. 3d 550 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018). In Parr

, after the defendant entered an open plea, the defendant’s grandfather was

called as a witnes s. Id. at 552. The grandfather testified that the family did not want the defendant to go back to jail and testified when asked by11 the court that the defendant was “absolutely not” a danger to the community. Id. The court then began to question the gra ndfather without waiting for the prosecutor to question him. We noted, “ [t] he questioning went far beyond clearing up ambiguities and was directed to discrediting the witness,” concluding that the court was “not neutral but had taken on

the role of a prosecutor.” Id. at 555.

Here, w e do not view the court’s questioning of appellant as taking on the role of a prosecutor. Instead, we understand that the questioning was to inform the court fully on the sentence. As the court itself noted, it asked

que stions to look for reasons to be “generous.” It was not seeking to

discredit appellant as a witness.

Further, the court was inquiring on a matter which the State raised

— appellant’s four prior convictions for resisting. This makes it distinguishable from Lang v State , 228 So. 3d 153 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017),

also relied upon by appellant. In Lang

, the court made its own

examination of other unrelated court records to discover a conviction not mentioned by the prosecutor. Id. at 154. The court then used that conviction to assess the credibility of defendant’s testimony on the violation of probation charge. Id. at 154

– 55

. Here, the court only asked the State for additional information with respect to charges that the State

had raised (and a ppellant had also admitted) to ascertain the length of sentence previously imposed. We see nothing improper about the court making that type of inquiry so that the court has a full understanding of appellant’s record for purposes of sentencing, where the record factors int o the sentence. The court did not depart from a position of neutrality.

Conclusion

No fundamental error occurred in the trial, as any errors were not

sufficient to vitiate the entire trial , and the court did not depart from a position of neutrality in the sentencing proceeding. We thus affirm appellant’s conviction and sentence on all issues.

Affirmed.

C IKLIN and F ORST , JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition o f timely filed motion for rehearing.