Opinion ID: 1920879
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Complained-of Comments Preserved for Review

Text: During the guilt phase, Snelgrove objected to two arguments made by the state attorney during the State's guilt phase closing argument. The first alleged that Snelgrove was attempting to transfer blame to the victim: Hmm. You know, it's funny. No one ever wants to take responsibility even when they do the worst. Shouldn't have happened that way. Shouldn't have happened that way. Oh, my gosh, look where I am. If they had only stayed asleep, I'd have never killed them. If I'd have only found the purse right away and snuck back out the window, I'd have never had to kill them. Defense counsel objected to this on the basis that it was irrelevant and unduly inflamed the jury. The second argument also occurred during closing arguments, and it spoke to the truth of Matthews' testimony: You know [Matthews] was telling the truth. Hmm. You can tell. You can tell better than I can, 12 of you can. Take your 12 years of experience and pool it. That man was telling the truth. And he knew things that only the killer would know, the kind of stuff that doesn't show up in the paper. Defense counsel claimed these statements were unsupported by the facts as there was no evidence that Snelgrove's admissions, as testified to by Matthews, did not appear in the newspaper. The trial court overruled both objections. Even if these arguments were improper and defense counsel's objections to them should have been sustained, we conclude that the trial court's failure to do so was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See State v. DiGuilio, 491 So.2d 1129, 1138 (Fla.1986) (recognizing that an impermissible statement is harmless when, in light of all the evidence presented, there is no reasonable probability that the statement contributed to the verdict).