# Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida
Opinion filed April 10, 2019. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearin g.

________________ No. 3D17-2718 Lower Tribunal No. 10-278-A-P

________________



### Noah Mitchell, Appellant,

vs. 

### The State of Florida, Appellee.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Monroe County, Ruth L. Be cker, Judge. Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Robert Kalter, Assist ant Public Defender, for appellant. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Kayla H. McNab, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before EMAS, C.J., and LOGUE and HENDON, JJ. HENDON, J.2 The defendant, Noah Mitchell, appeals from his conviction and sentence for one count of felony animal cruelty, arguing that the trial cour t violated his Sixth Amendment right to fully cross-examine the State’s only eyewitn ess. For the reasons that follow, we disagree. The defendant was charged with and convicted of one count of f elony animal cruelty involving his dog, a seven-month old Labrador Retriever . During trial, the defendant sought to cross-examine the State’s only eyewitness a s to his prior arrest for aggravated assault upon a neighbor. The defense proffered t hat the arrest for aggravated assault occurred after the eyewitness assaulted his neighbor and the eyewitness accused his neighbor of abusing an animal. However, when the police arrived, the police determined that the accusation of animal ab use was unfounded and arrested the eyewitness for aggravated assault. During the defendant’s crossexamination of the eyewitness, although the trial court did not permit the defense to cross-examine the eyewitness as to his arrest for aggravated as sault upon his neighbor, the jury did learn that this was not the first time t hat the eyewitness had accused someone of abusing an animal, and on that prior occasio n, the accusation was false. The defendant contends that the trial court erred by not permi tting him to cross-examine the State’s eyewitness as to his arrest for aggra vated assault upon his neighbor. As there was no basis to admit the eyewitness’ prior unrelated arrest for3 aggravated assault, we disagree. Section 90.610(1), Florida Statutes (2018), provides: “A part y may attack the credibility of any witness, including an accused, by evidence t hat the witness has been convicted of a crime if the crime was punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of 1 year under the law under which the witness was conv icted, or if the crime involved dishonesty or a false statement regardless of the puni shment . . . .” In the instant case, although the State’s eyewitness was arrested for aggravated assault, he was not convicted. Therefore, there is no basis to admit his a rrest for aggravated assault under section 90.610(1). Finally, error, if any, was h armless beyond a reasonable doubt as the jury did learn that the State’s eyewitn ess had previously falsely accused another person of animal abuse. Second, testim ony from the veterinarian reflects that the injuries to the defendant’s dog were extensive and life threatening—collapsed lungs and several broken ribs—which injur ies are consistent with trauma, not from being dropped a few feet from the ground. Accordingly, we affirm the defendant’s conviction and sentence for felony anima l cruelty. Affirmed.