Case Name: Clara L. ROWLEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2006-10-18
Citations: 939 So. 2d 298
Docket Number: No. 4D05-1869
Parties: Clara L. ROWLEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: GUNTHER, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 939
Pages: 298–306

Head Matter:
Clara L. ROWLEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 4D05-1869.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
Oct. 18, 2006.
Michael H. Bloom of the Law Offices of Michael H. Bloom, Coconut Grove, for appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Diane F. Medley, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

Opinion:
GROSS, J.
Clara Rowley appeals her conviction for fleeing and eluding a police officer, a third degree felony, contrary to section 316.1935(2), Florida Statutes (2004). We affirm the conviction.
She argues that the trial court erroneously restricted her cross-examination of a police officer on a matter that went to his bias. However, the defense failed to proffer what the excluded evidence would have revealed or how it was relevant to this case. The absence of such a proffer precludes our review of the restriction of cross-examination.
Mrs. Rowley is a 71-year-old grandmother who has been married for 55 years. She has five children, fifteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. After attending mass and stopping for pancakes at Wal-Mart, Mrs. Rowley's ear was stopped by Officer Robert Kyzer of the Sebastian Police Department for a broken taillight, an infraction for which Kyzer intended to give Mrs. Rowley a warning. This innocuous traffic stop escalated into something more and ended with Mrs. Rowley's arrest, at another location, following a low-speed chase. Mrs. Rowley's defense at trial was that the conduct of police officers at the traffic stop gave rise to the defense of necessity, which justified her leaving the scene of the traffic stop contrary to the direction of the officers, and driving down the road with two police cars in pursuit.
During a proffer, defense counsel questioned Officer Kyzer about something called the "Pomeroy matter" as follows:
Q: And in fact, isn't it true, that the Sebastian Police Department has already had one difficulty with Mr. Pom-eroy?
A: No.
Q: You weren't involved in the Pomer-oy matter?
A: Yes.
Q: Mr. Pomeroy died; isn't that right?
A: Yes.
Q: And isn't it true that you didn't want to have that happen again?
A: No.
Q: No, you wanted it to happen again?
A: No.
Q: So in fact because you have a seventy-one-year-old woman who'd been injured by the police and because we have Mr. Pomeroy's family suing the Sebastian Police Department and you in particular that you concocted this situation where she committed this felony of fleeing and attempting to elude in order to protect yourself and the Sebastian Police Department.
A: No, that's absolutely incorrect.
As Mrs. Rowley argues on appeal, case law recognizes that exploration of bias in a criminal case allows for cross-examination into an "officer's use of excessive force in other cases," "[wjhere there is an issue of whether or not excessive force was used by a law enforcement officer" in the case at hand. Michael v. State, 884 So.2d 83, 85 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004); see also Hinojosa v. State, 857 So.2d 308, 310 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003); Mendez v. State, 412 So.2d 965, 966 (Fla. 2d DCA 1982); Henry v. State, 688 So.2d 963, 965-66 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997); Ivester v. State, 398 So.2d 926 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981). The existence of other complaints about an officer provide a motive to color testimony "to avoid another complaint which could [lead] to disciplinary action" or another lawsuit. Michael, 884 So.2d at 85. Thus, as the second district wrote in Mendez, evidence of an officer's prior suspensions for excessive force "would have provided the jury with a highly plausible motive for [the officer's] misrepresentation of the true facts surrounding the shooting incident" in that case. 412 So.2d at 966.
Defense counsel's proffer failed to demonstrate that cross-examination was appropriate under the Michael, Henry, and Mendez line of cases. The proffer established only that the Sebastian Police Department had a "matter" with Mr. Pomeroy and that Pomeroy died. The proffer failed to specify how, if at all, Officer Kyzer was involved in the "Pomeroy matter," so that the trial court was alerted to the Michael, Henry, and Mendez basis for cross-examination. Neither by his questions to Kyzer nor by an offer of proof did defense counsel establish facts that would have justified the proposed cross-examination. The absence of an adequate proffer precludes our review of the alleged error. See § 90.104(1)(b), Fla. Stat. (2004); A McD. v. State, 422 So.2d 336, 337-38 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982).
Even assuming that the trial judge erroneously restricted cross-examination, we find such error in this case to be harmless.
When rejecting the police officers' version of the facts and viewing Mrs. Row-ley's testimony in the most favorable light, the facts do not support the defense of necessity. Mrs. Rowley testified that: (1) after stopping her car for having a broken taillight, the officer took a long time to write her a warning; (2) during the process of writing the warning, the officer returned to the car and asked her the color of her eyes; (3) when she got out of her car, two officers, "yelling as loudly as they could" and "bellowing in [her] face," told her to get back in the car; (4) a police dog was barking inside the patrol car, which had its emergency lights flashing; (5) one officer told Mrs. Rowley, "[w]e have had just about enough of you;" (6) it was night; (7) once she informed the officers that she was "terribly afraid and I want to go home, I'm going home," the officers "were walking towards the van and they were screaming no, you're not, no, you're not, over and over. And I said but I am, I am leaving. And they said no, you're not. And I, then I, then I said, well of course I am going home." Stating that she was, "very aware of driving very carefully," Mrs. Rowley then started her car and left the scene of the stop, leading several police cars, with sirens and lights flashing, "on a low speed chase."
There was no dispute at trial that Mrs. Rowley violated section 316.1935(2); she willfully fled or attempted to elude a law enforcement officer who was "in a jurisdic-tionally marked vehicle with sirens and lights activated." Anderson v. State, 780 So.2d 1012, 1014 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001). The only defense to the charge was necessity, also called duress, compulsion, or coercion. See Mickel v. State, 929 So.2d 1192, 1196 n. 2 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006). The trial court charged the jury on this defense. Mrs. Rowley's version of the facts do not rise to the level required to make out the defense. See Driggers v. State, 917 So.2d 329, 331 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005); Fla. Std. Jury Instr. (Crim.) 3.6(k).
Affirmed.
GUNTHER, J., concurs.
FARMER, J., dissents with opinion.
. There was no dispute that Mrs. Rowley suffered no physical injury at the initial traffic stop.
. The officer answered "Yes" to the question "You weren't involved in the Pomeroy matter?," which suggests that he was not involved.