FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

STATE OF FLORIDA

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No. 1D2022-0836

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RUBEN CHRISTOPHER GOODSON,

Appellant,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

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On appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.

J. Lee Marsh, Judge.

January 17, 2024

WINOKUR, J.

Ruben Christopher Goodson was convicted of attempted firstdegree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. On 

appeal, Goodson argues that the trial court erred in denying his 

motion in limine to exclude evidence that he was on probation at 

the time he committed the crime and in denying his motion to 

suppress an out-of-court lineup identification by the victim. We 

affirm. 

In the early hours of October 22, 2019, the victim, Melanie 

Gonzalez, and her friend, Catherine Fernandez, were returning

home when they got a flat tire. While Fernandez repaired the flat 

tire, Goodson—a friend of Fernandez’s—arrived to help. After the 

tire was fixed, the three returned to Goodson’s apartment to 
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consume alcohol and smoke cannabis. While at the apartment 

Goodson told Gonzalez and Fernandez several times that he was 

under house arrest. After disclosing his house arrest status, 

Goodson discovered that Gonzalez was applying to work for the 

Florida Department of Corrections. After that conversation, the 

mood suddenly changed. 

Gonzalez told Fernandez that she felt uncomfortable and the 

two decided to leave. Goodson offered to walk them out and 

instructed the two ladies to walk in front of him. When Gonzalez 

tried to enter her car, Goodson pulled out a handgun and shot her. 

The bullet went through her nasal cavity into her left cheek, but 

Gonzalez managed to drive away and find police officers nearby. 

After Tallahassee police investigated the incident and 

Gonzalez went to the hospital for her injury, Gonzalez identified 

Goodson as her shooter in a photographic lineup. Before the lineup, 

Gonzalez received Goodson’s phone number and Instagram 

account handle from Fernandez. When Gonzalez met with Officer 

Copelin at the police station, he instructed her not to view the 

Instagram account before the lineup. She complied and assured 

him she had not seen his account prior to her arrival. 

During the lineup, Gonzalez lingered on Goodson’s 

photograph several times and soon disqualified others. After 

Gonzalez selected Goodson as her shooter, the officer returned to 

the room and asked Gonzalez to “pull up” the Instagram account 

she had previously given him. Gonzalez immediately recognized 

the pictures from the Instagram account as Goodson’s. 

The same day, Goodson was arrested, and a warrant was 

issued to search his apartment. Tallahassee police recovered a

hoodie matching the description Gonzalez gave and an AR-15 

behind the dryer machine. The firearm used in Gonzalez’s 

shooting, however, was not recovered. 

Goodson proceeded to a bifurcated trial and the jury returned 

a guilty verdict for both charges. He was sentenced to forty years 

in prison for attempted first-degree murder and fifteen years for 

possession of a firearm as a convicted felon, to run concurrently. 
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I.

Before trial, Goodson moved to exclude evidence and 

testimony about having been on probation when he shot Gonzalez. 

The trial court denied the motion, concluding the evidence was 

relevant, its probative value was not substantially outweighed by 

its prejudicial effect, and not unnoticed collateral crime evidence

pursuant to section 90.404(2)(d)1., Florida Statutes. We review the 

trial court’s evidentiary ruling for abuse of discretion. See Jones v. 

State, 278 So. 3d 903, 904 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019) (citing Bass v. State, 

147 So. 3d 1033, 1035 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014)).

“Discretion is abused only when no reasonable person ‘would 

take the view adopted by the trial court,’” Figueroa-Sanabria v. 

State, 366 So. 3d 1035, 1048 (Fla. 2023) (quoting Canakaris v. 

Canakaris, 382 So. 2d 1197, 1203 (Fla. 1980)). Here, we cannot say 

that. 

At trial, it was established that Goodson had a likely motive 

to shoot Gonzalez—she desired to work for the Department of 

Corrections and Goodson was violating his probation terms in her 

presence. Accordingly, the court did not abuse its discretion in 

concluding that evidence of Goodson’s probation status at the time 

of the shooting was relevant and probative to the jury’s 

consideration of why Goodson would have shot Gonzalez. 

II.

Goodson also argues that the trial court erred in denying his 

motion to suppress Gonzalez’s out-of-court lineup identification 

because the officer showed Gonzalez Goodson’s Instagram account 

after the lineup. The trial court rejected Goodson’s arguments, 

finding that a police officer cannot call into question the veracity 

of an out-of-court lineup identification after the lineup was 

concluded. We agree. 

The scrutiny of an out-of-court photo lineup involves two 

questions. First, whether “the police employ[ed] an unnecessarily 

suggestive procedure in obtaining an out-of-court identification,”

Grant v. State, 390 So. 2d 341, 343 (Fla. 1980), and second, “if so, 

considering all the circumstances, did the suggestive procedure 
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give rise to a substantial likelihood of irreparable 

misidentification[.]” Alahad v. State, 362 So. 3d 190, 198 (Fla. 

2023) (citing Grant, 390 So. 2d at 343). Moreover, when reviewing 

the “mixed question presented by a trial court’s ruling on a motion 

to suppress an out-of-court identification” we apply the abuse of 

discretion standard of review. See Alahad, 362 So. 3d at 201 (citing 

Sims v. Brown, 574 So. 2d 131, 133 (Fla. 1991)). Here, we cannot 

say that the trial court abused its discretion in concluding that 

Gonzalez’s lineup identification was not unnecessarily suggestive 

or likely to lead to an irreparable misidentification. 

Nothing in the record before us shows Tallahassee police used 

suggestive tactics to lead Gonzalez to select Goodson as her 

shooter. The record shows that the appropriate procedure under 

section 92.70(3), Florida Statutes, was followed to ensure that an 

independent officer with no knowledge of the incident 

administered the lineup. We reject Goodson’s argument that a 

police officer can impair the veracity of a lineup identification after 

the lineup has concluded. 

Indeed, in Rimmer v. State, the supreme court found that an 

identification where a witness “had already selected appellant 

from the photo spread” when a detective made a suggestive 

comment was not improper. 825 So. 2d 304, 317–18 (Fla. 2002). 

The same is true here. The officer here did not show Gonzalez 

Goodson’s Instagram photos until after she had identified Goodson

as her shooter in the lineup. 

Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its 

discretion in finding that Gonzalez’s lineup was not unnecessarily

suggestive, and we need not address the second prong of the 

inquiry. See Rimmer, 825 So. 2d at 316. 

AFFIRMED. 

B.L. THOMAS and LONG, JJ., concur.
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Not final until disposition of any timely and 

authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 

9.331.

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Jessica J. Yeary, Public Defender, John J. Knowles, Megan Lynne 

Long, and Pamela D. Presnell, Assistant Public Defenders, 

Tallahassee, for Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Heather Flanagan Ross, 

Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.