Case Name: Kenneth COTTON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2000-06-09
Citations: 763 So. 2d 437
Docket Number: No. 4D97-3560
Parties: Kenneth COTTON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: WARNER, C.J., DELL, STEVENSON, SHAHOOD, and HAZOURI, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 763
Pages: 437–447

Head Matter:
Kenneth COTTON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 4D97-3560.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
June 9, 2000.
Rehearing Denied Aug. 18, 2000.
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Joseph R. Chloupek, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and David M. Schultz, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

Opinion:
EN BANC
TAYLOR, J.
Kenneth Cotton appeals his conviction of trafficking in cocaine of 400 grams or more. We find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's decision to proceed with appellant's trial following his rejection of the state's plea offer to lesser charges. We write only to address appellant's point on appeal that the trial court erred in precluding his cross-examination of a state witness concerning exculpatory statements appellant made at the time of his arrest. These statements pertained to his lack of knowledge that cocaine was inside a package in his possession.
Before trial, the state moved in limine to prohibit appellant from cross-examining one of the arresting officers about a statement appellant made following his arrest on a cocaine possession charge. Appellant told the officer that the package of cocaine found in his possession during a traffic stop search was handed to him by the driver immediately before the officers approached the vehicle and that he did not know that the package contained cocaine. During the hearing on the motion in li-mine, the state assured the court that it did not intend to introduce any evidence of the appellant's statements to the officer in its case-in-chief. Nonetheless, appellant objected to the motion in limine, arguing that his statement to the police was admissible as evidence of his "state. of mind" concerning a lack of knowledge that the package he possessed contained cocaine. The trial court ruled that appellant's statement was inadmissible hearsay and granted the state's motion in limine to prevent appellant from cross-examining the officer about the statement.
Thereafter, appellant testified in his own behalf. He testified that he was a passenger in a vehicle stopped for speeding on the Florida Turnpike. He said he was asleep just before the stop, but was awakened by the driver, who handed him a package and told him to hide it in his pants. Appellant denied knowing that the package contained cocaine. He said that he first learned of its contents when he was searched and the package was opened by the police. After his arrest for possession of cocaine, appellant told one of the officers that he did not know he was concealing cocaine on his person because the driver had given him the package without divulging its contents and instructed him to hide it.
Appellant argues on appeal that the trial court erred in not allowing him to bring out this favorable testimony through cross-examination of the officer. Further, he claims that the error was prejudicial because he was forced to give up his right not to testify and expose his prior criminal record to the jury. In his argument, the appellant relies on several hearsay exceptions. However, we conclude that none of the hearsay arguments raised, each of which we address, require reversal.
When a defendant seeks to introduce his own out-of-court exculpatory statement for the truth of the matter stated, it is inadmissible hearsay. Ehrhardt, Florida Evidence § 801.3 (1998); Lott v. State, 695 So.2d 1239 (Fla.1997); Logan v. State, 511 So.2d 442 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987); Fagan v. State, 425 So.2d 214 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983). However, if a defendant's out-of-court statement is not offered by the defendant to prove the truth of its content, it is not hearsay and should be admitted, provided the purpose for which the statement is being offered is relevant to a material issue in the case. See Eh-rhardt, Florida Evidence § 801.3. Also, an out-of-court-statement made by the defendant is admissible if it comes within an exception to the hearsay rule. A defendant's offer of his own out-of-court statement, however, does not fall under the admission exception to' the hearsay rule, section 90.803(18), Florida Statutes (1997). This is so because a defendant seeking to introduce his own statement is not offering it "against a party" within the meaning of section 90.803(18).
A defendant's out-of-court statement is also allowed into evidence if it is being admitted under the rule of completeness. This rule, .sometimes referred to as the doctrine of curative admissibility, entitles the defendant to bring out exculpatory portions of his statement when a state witness has testified about incriminating remarks, contemporaneously made by the defendant. See Christopher v. State, 583 So.2d 642 (Fla.1991); Guerrero v. State, 532 So.2d 75 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988).
Appellant cites numerous cases in arguing that his out-of-court statement to the police should have been admitted as non-hearsay "state-of-mind" evidence. However, none of these cases apply here. In King v. State, 684 So.2d 1388 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996), the challenged out-of-court statement was not made by the defendant but by a third party to the defendant and was offered to prove the defendant's state-of-mind, i.e., that the defendant had no reason to know that the check he passed was a forgery. Similarly, in Duncan v. State, 616 So.2d 140 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993), the improperly excluded out-of-court state ment was not the defendant's, but the out-of-court statement of another who sold stolen tire rims to the defendant. The seller told the defendant that the tire rims had been salvaged from his wrecked pickup truck. The appellate court concluded that the seller's statement was not hearsay because it was offered to demonstrate its effect on the defendant in tending to dispel any suspicion about the unusually low price of the tire rims.
In Hansman v. State, 679 So.2d 1216 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996), a burglary and theft prosecution, we found reversible error in the trial court's exclusion of testimony of the defendant's girlfriend that she heard the owner of the baseball card collection give the defendant permission to take the collection so that he could recover insurance benefits. This evidence, we concluded, went to "the heart of the defense." Id. at 1217.
In Kent v. State, 704 So.2d 121 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997), also cited by appellant, testimony concerning conversations in which undercover officers sought to purchase cocaine from the defendant and the defendant refused to sell cocaine to them was ruled admissible as either nonhearsay, since it was not offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted, or as a state-of-mind exception to the hearsay rule under section 90.803(3). The statements tended to show either inducement by the police or the defendant's lack of predisposition and were, therefore, relevant to his defense of entrapment.
Appellant also cites Guerrero v. State, 532 So.2d 75 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988), wherein the third district reversed the defendant's grand theft conviction because the trial court prevented the defendant from cross-examining the arresting officer about explanations the defendant gave for possession of recently stolen property at the time of his arrest. However, in finding exclusion of the defendant's exculpatory statement improper, the court applied the rule of completeness, noting the unfairness of allowing the arresting officer to testify to some parts of his conversation with the defendant but to omit the exculpatory portions.
Other cases cited by appellant, Alexander v. State, 627 So.2d 35 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993) and Stiles v. State, 672 So.2d 850 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996), pertain to the hearsay exceptions of section 90.803(l)(spontaneous statement) and (2)(exeited utterance), Florida Statutes (1999), as justification for admitting a defendant's exculpatory statements. Appel lant has failed to show that his statement falls within one of these exceptions to the hearsay rule. The record below does not establish a time frame between concealment and discovery of the cocaine and appellant's out-of-court statement to the police describing these events such that his statement can be deemed admissible as a spontaneous statement. At most, we have only the prosecutor's estimate during argjiment on the motion in limine that appellant's statement was made "within the hour" of his arrest. Significantly, his statement was made after the appellant had been given his Miranda warnings. See Logan v. State 511 So.2d 442 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987)(exculpato-ry statements made by defendant to arresting officer four hours after burglary were hearsay and self-serving), (citing Fagan v. State, 425 So.2d 214 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983)); Rodriguez v. State, 591 So.2d 308 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991)(exculpato-ry hearsay statement at time of arrest approximately two and one-half months after the crime properly excluded); Watkins v. State, 342 So.2d 1057 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977)(trial court did not err in refusing to permit defendant to testify as to statement he made to police officers at police station after crime because such statements were not part of res gestae and were self-serving).
The record is similarly devoid of any evidence that would qualify appellant's statement as an excited utterance under 90.803(2). Whether the necessary state of mind is present for a court to admit a statement as an "excited utterance" exception is a preliminary fact for the trial court's determination. Ehrhardt, Florida Evidence § 803.2 (1998 Ed.); Perry v. State, 675 So.2d 976 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996). Our standard of review is abuse of discretion. Alexander v. State, 627 So.2d 35 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993). In this case, there, was not a sufficient factual predicate laid upon which we can conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in denying admission of appellant's statement under 90.803(2). See Ehrhardt, Florida Evidence § 803.2 (1998)(reviewing factors that the trial judge can consider in determining whether the necessary state of stress or excitement is present to conclude that the statements were excited or impulsive rather that the product of reflection and delib-eratione.g., the declarant's age, physical and mental condition, the nature of the event, and subject matter of the statements).
Appellant's strongest case law support lies in Henry v. State, 566 So.2d 29 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990). In Henry, we determined that the trial court erred in precluding cross-examination of a law enforcement witness concerning exculpatory statements made by a defendant charged with narcotics possession. During a consent search, the defendant explained how he acquired a suitcase containing cocaine. We ruled that the defendant was entitled to ask the officer about his statements, even though they were self-serving and although the officer testified only about the physical conduct of the search and not about any contemporaneous conversation with the defendant. We found, however, that the error in Henry was harmless because the evidence was subsequently testified to on defense and the defendant could have recalled the officer as a witness.
As appellant points out, it is unclear upon what evidentiary basis we determined the defendant's statements to be admissible in Henry. The state surmises that, because Henry cites Coco v. State, 62 So.2d 892 (Fla.1953) and Eberhardt v. State, 550 So.2d 102 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989), the rule of completeness was implicated. However, as mentioned above, the officer in Henry did not testify about any conversation he had with the defendant during the search but only about the physical conduct of the search. Thus, there is no basis for concluding that the state introduced any statements by the defendant that triggered the admission of exculpatory remarks to complete the whole context of the conversation. Cf. Eberhardt, 550 So.2d at 105.
Further, from our review of Henry, we are unable to find an exception to the hearsay rule or discern some purpose other than proving the truth of the statement's content that might have led to our conclusion that the defendant's statement to the officer was admissible. We acknowledge that Henry allows for a very broad interpretation of the admissibility of a criminal defendant's hearsay statement and, therefore, take this opportunity to clarify our position. We recede from Henry to the extent that it holds that a defendant's out-of-court exculpatory statement is, in general, admissible. We hold, instead, that a defendant's out-of-court exculpatory statement is hearsay if offered by the defendant for the truth of the matter stated therein and should not be admitted unless it falls within one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule or is admissible under some other principle of fairness, such as the rule of completeness.
In this case, appellant argues that his post-arrest statement to the police denying ownership and knowledge of the cocaine was not hearsay because, as defense counsel argued to the trial court, it was not offered for the truth of the statement but to show that he made the statement. However, the mere fact that the defendant made the statement to the police is not relevant to any material fact or issue in this case. What is relevant to his defense is the content of the statement — i.e., that the driver handed him the package for him to hide and that he did not know it con tained cocaine. The statement was, in essence, offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted in the statement. Thus, it qualifies as hearsay.
Appellant argues alternatively that his denial of guilty knowledge to the police comes within a "state of mind" exception to the hearsay rule. As discussed above, the cases relied upon by appellant for this position involved statements made by persons other than the defendant that were offered to show their effect upon the defendant's then-existing state of mind to explain his alleged criminal acts. In this case, however, appellant sought to introduce his own post-arrest statement to the police, wherein he explained his prior state of mind and conduct surrounding possession of the cocaine. His denial of guilty knowledge of the cocaine cannot be construed as a statement of then-existing state of mind offered for the reasons contemplated by section 90.803(3). Rather, his statement is precisely the type of self-serving exculpatory statement that has been traditionally regarded as inadmissible hearsay because of its lack of reliability and trustworthiness. See Fagan, 425 So.2d at 215.
Based on the above, we find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in precluding appellant's cross-examination of a state witness concerning exculpatory statements appellant made at the time of his arrest. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of conviction and sentence.
AFFIRMED.
WARNER, C.J., DELL, STEVENSON, SHAHOOD, and HAZOURI, JJ., concur.
FARMER, J., concurs with opinion, in which GUNTHER, STONE and POLEN, JJ., concur.
KLEIN, J., concurs specially with opinion, in which GROSS, J., concurs.