Opinion ID: 1844186
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: trial court's misstatement during voir dire

Text: Parker also contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion for a mistrial based on the trial court's misstatement made during voir dire. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying a mistrial. After the venire panel was sworn, the trial court made the following comments about the nature of the case, which are pertinent to this issue on appeal: Now, let me tell you what we're here on. This is the case of the State of Florida versus J.B. Parker. Now in this case the reason we are here as I've mentioned is not to determine whether Mr. Parker is guilty of a crime, that has been determined at an earlier time. Mr. Parker has been found guilty of murder in the first degree.... And the specific reason for which we are impaneling a jury in this case is to determine what is the appropriate sentence, whether Mr. Parker should be sentenced to the death penalty or should be sentenced to life in prison.... This is a case, and I'm going to read from the original charge, where Mr. Parker has been charged and as indicted found guilty of the crime of first degree murder and he has been convicted of the unlawful and premeditated death of a human being by killing and murdering Frances Julia Slater, a human being, on or about April 27, 1982, in Martin County, Florida. (Emphasis supplied.) Defense counsel moved for a mistrial and to strike the venire panel because the trial court misstated that Parker was convicted of premeditated murder when, in fact, the jury returned a general verdict convicting Parker of first-degree murder after being instructed that it could rely on either premeditation or felony-murder. The trial court denied the motion and then made the following statement to the venire panel: Members of the potential jury. In this case I have read you what the indictment, the original indictment stated. At the trial at which Mr. Parker was convicted, the State had two theories of first degree murder, one is premeditated murder and the other is felony murder during the course of a robbery or kidnapping and Mr. Parker was convicted of first degree murder after that case was submitted to himor submitted to the jury and the lawyers may want to talk with you a little bit further about some of this that I've mentioned here. On appeal, Parker asserts that the trial court's statement that he had been convicted of premeditated murder denied him a fair trial. [11] In Franqui v. State, 804 So.2d 1185, 1192 (Fla.2001), we considered the defendant's claim that the trial court erred in stating during voir dire that the law required the jury to recommend a death sentence if jurors believed that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances. We concluded that the trial court's isolated misstatements of the law during voir dire were harmless. Id. at 1194. In determining that the error was harmless, we noted that the trial court's subsequent comments to the venire panel were consistent with the standard jury instruction on the issue, and that [m]ore importantly, the trial court did not repeat the misstatement when it instructed the jury before deliberations. Id. at 1193. In this case, the circumstances supporting a finding of harmless error are even stronger than those presented in Franqui. The trial court initially misstated that Parker had been found guilty of the crime of first degree murder and ... been convicted of the unlawful and premeditated death of a human being by killing and murdering Frances Julia Slater. However, the court did not repeat this misstatement and properly instructed the jurors prior to deliberations that their duty was to advise the court as to what punishment should be imposed upon the Defendant for his crime of first degree murder. (Emphasis supplied.) In addition, and unlike the trial court in Franqui, the trial court in this case corrected its misstatement after Parker objected. Cf. Burns v. State, 609 So.2d 600, 604 (Fla.1992) (holding that the defendant's due process rights were not violated when the trial court misspoke by instructing jurors to find the defendant guilty if the offense was proved to your satisfaction by the greater weight of the evidence but immediately corrected the misstatement and again explained, before allowing the jury to resume deliberations, the proper standard of proof). Therefore, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Parker's motion for mistrial.