Case Name: Daniel OCHACHER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2008-08-13
Citations: 987 So. 2d 1241
Docket Number: No. 4D07-2494
Parties: Daniel OCHACHER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: WARNER, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 987
Pages: 1241–1244

Head Matter:
Daniel OCHACHER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 4D07-2494.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
Aug. 13, 2008.
Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Tom Wm. Odom, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Don M. Rogers, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for ap-pellee.

Opinion:
POLEN, J.
Appellant Daniel Ochacher timely appeals a conviction for felony driving under the influence. He argues that the trial court erred in allowing testimony about his suspended license at the time of the charged offense. Ochacher claims that the fact he was driving with a suspended license was not probative of whether he was driving under the influence.
We affirm. Although the trial court abused its discretion in finding the probative value outweighed any prejudice, it was harmless error. State v. DiGuilio, 491 So.2d 1129 (Fla.1986). We agree with the harmless error standard set forth in DiGu-ilio, as explained in Judge Taylor's dissent, that it "is not a suffieiency-of-the-evidence, a correct result, a not clearly wrong, a substantial evidence, a more probable than not, a clear and convincing, or even an overwhelming evidence test." The question is the effect of the impermissible evidence on the trier of fact. We examined the entire record and the evidence that the jury could have properly relied upon in reaching its verdict, as well as examining even more closely the impermissible evidence that possibly may have influenced the verdict. DiGuilio; Goodwin v. State, 751 So.2d 537 (Fla.1999). Nonetheless, we are of the view there is no reasonable probability the error contributed to the verdict.
Although admission of collateral crime evidence is presumptively harmful, it can be harmless if it can be said beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not affect the verdict. See Czubak v. State, 570 So.2d 925 (Fla.1990). In Czubak the court held that evidence that a defendant was a convicted felon was not harmless because the case against him on the cur rent charge was circumstantial. In Castro v. State, 547 So.2d 111 (Fla.1989), however, the court found that admission of collateral crime evidence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of the totality of the evidence and defendant's confession. Thus, the totality of the evidence must be reviewed in any harmless error analysis.
The evidence presented by the state is summarized as follows: Lieutenant Kaplan testified that he observed Ochacher's car make an erratic swerve and later hit the median twice. Officer Dorfman testified that upon making contact "with Ochacher, he noticed that Ochacher was staggering, slurred his speech, had bloodshot watery eyes, and had the odor of alcohol on his breath. Ochacher told the officer that he had four to six beers and couldn't drive. Ochacher was unsure of where he was coming from as he told two officers two different bars. Furthermore, Officer Dorfman watched Ochacher fall forward a couple of times and stumble while he spoke with him. While conducting field sobriety tests, Officer Dorfman testified that Ochacher stepped off the line a few times in the walk-and-turn test, failed to walk heel to toe, turned right instead of left, failed to take the required number of steps, failed to count the way he was instructed to, swayed, put his foot down many times on the one-legged stand exercise, and was told to stop the exercise for his safety. At that point the officers placed him under arrest. He was asked to take a breath test and refused. After presentation of the state's case, the defense presented no witnesses and rested.
The state's three brief references to the suspended license charge in closing argument, interspersed through seventeen pages of closing, appear as follows:
The defendant in his poor judgment did in his lack or inability to have any judgment gets behind the wheel of a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, decides to drive while his license is suspended.
[Gjetting behind the wheel of a vehicle knowing your license is suspended having two, three, four, five, six beers, admitting to Officer Dorfman I can't drive, that is an inability to make judgments.
He decided to drive a vehicle with his license suspended, drive down University Drive at 1:00 o'clock in the morning almost causing his vehicle to flip....
The direct observation of the officers was not contradicted by any other evidence, nor did the defense present any theory of defense other than to attack the observations of the officers. As in Castro, we conclude that under the totality of the evidence and the direct observations of the defendant by the officers, any error in admitting this evidence of defendant's suspended license was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Affirmed.
WARNER, J., concurs.
TAYLOR, J., dissents with opinion.