Case Name: STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Charles ZENOBIA, Respondent
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1993-02-11
Citations: 614 So. 2d 1139
Docket Number: No. 93-0053
Parties: STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Charles ZENOBIA, Respondent.
Judges: ANSTEAD, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 614
Pages: 1139–1141

Head Matter:
STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Charles ZENOBIA, Respondent.
No. 93-0053.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
Feb. 11, 1993.
Barry E. Krischer, State Atty., and Ellen D. Roberts, Asst. State Atty., West Palm Beach, for petitioner.
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Louis G. Carres, Asst. Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for respondent.

Opinion:
FARMER, Judge.
We deny the state's petition for a writ of common law certiorari and write only to respond to Judge Dell's dissent. We view a judge's pretrial ruling on a motion in limine as entirely tentative. After evidence is actually adduced at the trial, the judge may suffer a change of mind and decide — contrary to a pretrial ruling — that evidence may have to be admitted or excluded. For that reason, we begin our analysis of a petition for certiorari seeking reversal of a pretrial exclusion of evidence with an inclination to forego extraordinary review.
When the pretrial exclusion is attended also by factual rulings by the trial judge — e.g., that even if relevant its prejudicial aspects outweigh its probative value — we are doubly reluctant to reverse such an exclusion. We recognize that the failure to review it now may all but render it unreviewable, because the state is not permitted to appeal an acquittal. That only means to us that there exists the theoretical possibility of pretrial, extraordinary review; it does not mean, however, that we should lessen our initial reluctance to disagree with a judge's factual finding.
To us, this is just another instance where the state has indicated an interest in proving crime A by showing little more than that the defendant committed crime B. Aside from the fact that the state's notice shows that both crimes involve a violation of the same statute and that both episodes have some features in common, the state has failed utterly to suggest in its notice what particular aspect — i.e., motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, or lack of consent — it really seeks to prove by such evidence. Hence, we think the kind of notice used here should be grounds for the exclusion of the evidence, simply because of the insufficiency of the notice.
Beyond that, however, the trial judge's written order excluding this section 90.-404(l)(a) evidence contains particularized findings, holding that none of the grounds in the statute apply here. He said, e.g., that consent, modus operandi and identification — the only statutory possibilities he apparently found even remotely possible from the facts — are not in issue. He also expressly found as a factual matter that prejudice would outweigh any possible relevance served by this evidence.
A primary consideration in this issue is how the other crimes evidence is going to play at trial. If the use of such evidence threatens to become the central focus of the trial, or if that evidence is significantly different from the evidence of the crime on trial in such a way that it might so "poison the well" that all the jury instructions in the world may not conceivably undo, then under those circumstances the trial judge should certainly exclude it.
That is precisely what the trial judge found here, and there is undeniably evidence supporting his view of the pertinent facts. These factual findings are uniquely within his province and not in ours. For us to say that the probative value of this excluded evidence exceeds any prejudice, however, we would have to substitute our own fact-finding for his.
We therefore deny the state's petition for a writ of common law certiorari in this case.
PETITION DENIED.
ANSTEAD, J., concurs.
DELL, J., dissents with opinion.
. The mere fact that the excluded "other crimes" evidence is relevant is hardly dispositive, for if it were irrelevant there would be little to detain us.