Case Name: Harry Joseph FITZGERALD, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1969-10-14
Citations: 227 So. 2d 45
Docket Number: No. 69-101
Parties: Harry Joseph FITZGERALD, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: Before PEARSON, C. J., and CHARLES CARROLL, and SWANN, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 227
Pages: 45–47

Head Matter:
Harry Joseph FITZGERALD, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 69-101.
District Court of Appeal of Florida. Third District.
Oct. 14, 1969.
Essen & Essen, Miami, for appellant.
Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., and Harold Mendelow, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Before PEARSON, C. J., and CHARLES CARROLL, and SWANN, JJ.

Opinion:
PEARSON, Chief Judge.
The appellant was adjudicated guilty after a jury trial in the Criminal Court of Record in and for Dade County, Florida, (1) of breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a misdemeanor (petit larceny), and (2) of petit larceny. On this appeal we are concerned only with the breaking and entering judgment. Two points are presented. The first urges that the conviction cannot stand because of a fatal variance between the allegations of the information and the proof. The second urges that the judgment should be reversed for a new trial because of prejudicial statements made by the prosecutor in closing argument.
An amended information charged the appellant with breaking and entering a designated building with intent to commit a felony (grand larceny). Six weeks prior to the commencement of trial the state filed a response to a motion for a statement of particulars. This response made clear that appellant was actually charged with breaking in a door and removing valuable personal property from an office inside the designated building. At trial there was no evidence to establish that the appellant broke into the building. There was competent evidence to show that he kicked in a panel of an office door inside a designated building in order to gain entrance into the office. The question then is whether this variance between the allegations of the information and the proof at trial is fatal to the judgment of conviction. Not every variance between allegation and proof is a fatal variance. This is true because the law does not guarantee the defendant an error-free trial but a fair trial. Simpson v. State, Fla.App.1968, 211 So.2d 862, 867. Therefore in deciding whether a variance is fatal to the judgment it is necessary for us to examine the record to determine whether the record reveals a possibility that the defendant may have been misled or embarrassed in the preparation or presentation of his defense. See Cannon v. State, 91 Fla. 214, 107 So. 360, 363 (1926); Hunter v. State, Fla.App. 1967, 200 So.2d 577. This record conclusively shows that the appellant was at all times advised of the extent of the charge against him and of the particulars which the state proved at trial. We hold therefore that the judgment is not reversible upon appellant's first point.
During closing argument the prosecutor made the following statement:
"I believe that in this trial you cannot help but find conflicts. I think that you are going to find irreconcilable conflicts between the testimony of Mr. Becton and the testimony of the defendant, and I now ask you to weigh some standards, from your experience, in judging the testimony of each in determining which to believe.
"Take, for example, the defendant, Mr. Fitzgerald. Now Mr. Fitzgerald, by his own testimony, has spent the better part of his life in jail." (Emphasis added).
During the testimony of the appellant in his own defense, he had admitted (1) that he had just gotten out of jail on a drunk charge; (2) that he had been in that kind of trouble "quite a number of times"; (3) that he had been arrested for being drunk "consistently". He also admitted to two felony convictions. The record shows that the appellant was 44 years old. It also contains grounds for believing he is an alcoholic. These facts do not however justify the emphasized portion of the foregoing statement. The appellant moved for a mistrial. The motion was denied with a comment from the trial judge that the appellant had testified to something along those lines. Even without this comment from the bench the emphasized portion of the prosecutor's statement requires us to reverse the judgment of conviction. A prosecutor may comment on the credibility of the accused (see Campbell v. State, 155 Fla. 359, 20 So.2d 127 [1945]), but he
" should always confine his argument to facts which are established by the record or which may be reasonably inferred from the facts established, and when he goes beyond that range he takes the chance that he may thereby cause the necessity of the reversal of a favorable judgment." Frenette v. State, 158 Fla. 675, 29 So.2d 869 (1947). (Emphasis added.)
A statement to the same effect appears in 23A C.J.S. Criminal Law § 1090, p. 129. We hold that the prosecutor in the present case by making in his closing argument the statement we emphasized went beyond a reasonable inference from the facts established, since the conclusion that the appellant "by his own testimony has spent the better part of his life in jail" is not a reasonable inference from the testimony he gave regarding prior convictions for offenses. The importance of the prosecutor's statement in this case may be measured by the fact that the crucial decision for the jury was whether to believe the appellant's version of the events that formed the basis of the arrest and trial.
This court was called upon to reverse a judgment upon a similar factual situation in Davis v. State, Fla.App. 1968, 214 So.2d 41. The robbery conviction there was reversed because of a prosecutor's prejudicial remark that the defendant had just finished serving a prison sentence for the same type of crime.
For the foregoing reasons we reverse the breaking and entering judgment and remand the cause for a new trial.
Reversed and remanded.
. See Spina v. State, Fla.App.1966, 186 So.2d 808.