Case Name: Francisco Eddy SURI, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2006-09-01
Citations: 937 So. 2d 216
Docket Number: No. 3D04-2022
Parties: Francisco Eddy SURI, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: Before GREEN, RAMIREZ, and ROTHENBERG, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 937
Pages: 216–223

Head Matter:
Francisco Eddy SURI, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 3D04-2022.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Sept. 1, 2006.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 21, 2006.
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Robert Kalter, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Michele Samaroo, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Before GREEN, RAMIREZ, and ROTHENBERG, JJ.

Opinion:
RAMIREZ, J.
Francisco Eddy Suri appeals from his conviction for two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation on a child less than twelve years of age. Because we conclude that counsel did not properly preserve the issue for review of the failure to excuse a potential juror for cause, we affirm.
The State charged Suri with two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation on a child under twelve, alleging that he committed several lewd acts against his girlfriend's seven-year-old daughter. At the beginning of voir dire, the prospective jurors were informed of the State's charges against Suri. There was an initial exchange between the court and prospective Juror Alade:
THE COURT: I see that you have friends who have been or were victims of very very serious crimes. How recent was the most recent?
PROSPECTIVE JUROR ALADE: Two thousand.
THE COURT: Do you think that either of those experiences would affect your ability to be fair and impartial?
PROSPECTIVE JUROR ALADE: No.
THE COURT: Okay.
The prosecutor then asked the jurors if there was anything in their backgrounds that would prevent them from being a fair and impartial juror. In response, prospective Juror Alade stated: "I do believe I could be fair and impartial, but I see a lot of this in my practice. I'm a resident in the department of pediatrics at Jackson. So I just thought I should say that." Juror Alade then answered "yes" to the following question: "And with that experience though, you still could be fair and impartial?"
In her juror questionnaire, Juror Alade stated that her best friend in high school was impregnated while being raped, and that her medical school sorority sister was raped and murdered. When defense counsel attempted to question Juror Alade further about these incidents, she requested that she be allowed to speak outside the presence of the other prospective jurors. When the jurors were dismissed for lunch, two jurors remained, including Juror Alade. The following exchange then took place:
THE COURT: Ms. Alade, will you join us sidebar, please.
DEFENSE: Ms. Alade, I know you wanted to go sidebar regarding you had placed in your questionnaire your friend in high school was raped and a friend in medical school murdered. I want to ask you some more detail about that privately. Which one was it in 2000?
ALADE: Medical school. That's current. Just started jury selection last week. I didn't think it will be appropriate to discuss that in front of everybody since it's on trial.
DEFENSE: And the person who was murdered, how close was that person to you?
ALADE: I had known her for two years. I joined the same sorority.
DEFENSE: Okay.
That case is going to trial this week?
ALADE: No. They started jury selection last week. It's been four years since the actual incident.
DEFENSE: Are you a witness?
ALADE: No. I haven't been called.
DEFENSE: Okay.
And are you having any feelings about that since it's in trial right now?
THE COURT: What does that mean?
DEFENSE: Are you having any feelings that will affect your ability to be fair in this case?
ALADE: No.
DEFENSE: No. Okay. All right.
And what about regarding your friend in high school?
THE COURT: Regarding what?
DEFENSE: Your friend in high school that was raped.
ALADE: What about it?
DEFENSE: How close was that person to you?
ALADE: Best Mend.
DEFENSE: Okay.
And what happened? Was the person ever caught?
ALADE: She never pressed charges. That took me a year to convince her to tell her parents that's how she got pregnant.
DEFENSE: Okay.
And did criminal charges ever come about?
ALADE: No. He was in jail for something else. She just got him to drop his parental rights.
DEFENSE: Okay. And is there anything about that experience that she was your Mend that would affect your ability to be fair in this case?
ALADE: I mean, I would hope not. I don't know if this case entails — I consider myself to be pretty level headed. I could separate one from the other. It was a long time ago. I don't know. If this was a seven year old who was raped and got pregnant, if that's going to bring something up in me. But I assume no. Do you understand?
DEFENSE: I think I do.
ALADE: Okay. I assume no. But if it's something that hits close to home, I can't tell you because I don't know the situation surrounding the case. I don't know. And my friend who was murdered in Gainesville, was also raped and murdered and left in her apartment for three days before we got in to find her.
THE COURT: Anything else? State?
PROSECUTOR: I'm assuming, for a moment, this little seven-year old was not pregnant. So knowing that, that's not going to cause you any problems?
ALADE: No. I honestly don't assume so, but no. As far as I can tell thinking logically, no.
PROSECUTOR: Good. Thank you.
THE COURT: Okay.
Juror Alade then expressed her concerns about scheduling, worried that the trial could take longer than her job duties as a resident at Jackson Memorial Hospital would allow, and the trial judge assured her that the trial could be completed within three days.
Before recessing for lunch, another juror was questioned. When the trial reeon- vened, jury selection began. When Juror Alade came up, the following took place:
DEFENSE COUNSEL: I'm moving for cause on Ms. Alade, Judge, because at sidebar when she was asked whether she could be fair, she hesitated.
THE COURT: Denied. I disagree with that representation. Anything you want to exercise a peremptory.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: No.
Later, the defense struck Juror Alade peremptorily. Then, after exhausting all of her peremptory challenges, defense counsel requested an additional peremptory challenge based on the denial of a cause challenge regarding another prospective juror, Juror De Diego. The trial court granted defense counsel's request. Defense counsel then requested one more additional peremptory challenge based on the denial of the cause challenge as to Juror Alade. Defense counsel identified the juror she would strike if the additional peremptory was granted. The trial court denied the request. The jury subsequently found Suri guilty as charged.
The defense contends on appeal that the trial court abused its discretion by denying its challenge for cause of Juror Alade where, based on her equivocal responses, there was a reasonable probability that Juror Alade could not be fair and impartial due to the fact that she is a pediatrician who deals with children who have been sexually abused, her best friend in high school was impregnated while being raped, and her sorority sister was raped and murdered. None of these arguments, however, were presented to the trial court.
When defense counsel stated that Juror Alade hesitated as to whether she could be fair, the trial court disagreed with that representation. The question of whether a prospective juror is competent to serve as a juror is a mixed question of law and fact and will not be disturbed on appeal unless the trial court's decision is manifestly erroneous. Mills v. State, 462 So.2d 1075, 1079 (Fla.1985).
As recognized in Dorsey v. State, 868 So.2d 1192 (Fla.2008), juror responses during voir dire include both verbal and nonverbal communications. The term "hesitate" clearly contains a nonverbal component when it refers to the speaker's slow delivery, or when the speaker pauses in uncertainty, or speaks haltingly. We must defer to the trial court's conclusion that Juror Alade did not hesitate in her nonverbal communication. See Fernandez v. State, 730 So.2d 277, 281 (Fla.1999).
Once defense counsel moved to strike for cause Juror Alade because she hesitated, and the trial court disagreed with counsel's representation, it became incumbent on counsel to expand on the objection so that the trial court could properly rule on the motion. Id.; Turner v. State, 645 So.2d 444, 446 (FIa.1994). This is a lynchpin of our preservation rule. If instead of nonverbal hesitation, defense counsel meant that there was verbal equivocation of the type recognized in Busby v. State, 894 So.2d 88 (Fla.2004), defense counsel should have voiced it. "The mere fact that a juror gives equivocal responses does not disqualify that juror for service. The question is whether the responses voiced by [the juror] were equivocal enough to generate a reasonable doubt about his fitness as a juror." Id. at 96. See also Guzman v. State, 934 So.2d 11 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006). Here the trial court never even had the opportunity to evaluate whether Juror Alade's responses were equivocal enough because that argument was never made. We therefore hold that the argument that Juror Alade's response were equivocal was not preserved when the motion to excuse her only mentioned that she hesitated.
Affirmed.
GREEN, J., concurs.
. For the sake of completeness, we have attempted to include all of Juror Alade's comments.