Opinion ID: 1648336
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: witness comment regarding prior trial

Text: Keen asserts that the trial court erred in denying his motion for mistrial after state witness Maddie Genova mentioned the last trial in this case. This claim is without merit. Our decision in Terry v. State, 668 So.2d 954 (Fla.1996), squarely addresses this issue. There, we reiterated that motions for mistrial are addressed to the trial court's discretion and should be granted only when necessary to ensure that a defendant receives a fair trial. Id. at 962. We also noted that a party may not invite error and then raise the issue on appeal. See id.; accord Knight, 746 So.2d at 432; San Martin v. State, 705 So.2d 1337, 1347 (Fla.1997). In analyzing an earlier case, [12] we reasoned that our analysis focused on whether the witness's answer was responsive to the question and whether counsel could have anticipated the witness's response. Terry, 668 So.2d at 962. In affirming the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion for mistrial based on the detective's comments that he was a suspect in other armed robberies, we quoted approvingly from the trial court's ruling. See id. at 962-63. The trial court correctly framed the issue when it wrote that it needed to determine if that was a fair response to the question and whether or not [the detective] intentionally tried to get something in front of this jury that he shouldn't have. Id. at 963. Here, the challenged comment arose during the following exchange: Defense counsel: Now, have you yourself ever worked into the sale of policies? Genova: No. Defense counsel: And Mr. Keen never collected any benefits on this policy, did he? Genova: That, I don't know. Defense counsel: Well, you said you have the whole Prudential file there. If you do, you would know that. Genova: This was from his last trial. This was not the complete file up to date. Defense Counsel: you just said that you brought the whole file? Genova: I didn't bring this in. Additionally, throughout Shapiro's cross-examination, the defense made exhaustive references to his prior testimonies. Clearly, the average juror could reasonably infer there had been prior proceedings in this case. The fact that the present trial was occurring in 1995, when it was absolutely clear that Anita died in 1981 with Keen being first incarcerated in 1984, certainly allowed jurors to reasonably conclude that something had previously occurred in the case. Genova's brief, innocuous statement only referred to the last trial, and did not mention whether it was civil or criminal, its outcome, or any details of the prior trials. Further, this situation is similar to that discussed in Norton v. State, 709 So.2d 87, 94 (Fla.1997), wherein we explained that [a]lthough an unsolicited comment is not `invited' where it is unresponsive to the question asked, the defense counsel in the instant case, in an unsuccessful attempt to make a point on cross-examination, merely received a direct answer in response to his question. We conclude that these circumstances did not warrant the severe remedy of a mistrial. Accordingly, we find no error in the denial of Keen's motion for mistrial.