Opinion ID: 1901682
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Violation of the Order in Limine

Text: In preparation for the testimony of the witnesses to the appellant's reward announcement, the trial court granted a defense motion in limine to preclude the State from introducing any evidence of the appellant's statement during his proclamation that he did not care about the consequences of killing the thief, because he was already serving two life sentences. To ensure compliance with the order, the court instructed the State to inform all of its witnesses of the ruling, and the court also did so before each of them testified. All of the State's witnesses complied with the order. During the defense case-in-chief, the appellant's attorneys elicited the testimony of Vincent Maynard, another LCI inmate. After an initial period of neutral direct examination, the defense began to explicitly attempt to blame Maynard for the death of the victim. The defense proffered reverse Williams [10] rule evidence of Maynard's prior crimes, and started to question him in an openly hostile manner, resulting in an argumentative exchange of questions and answers between the examining attorney and witness. Not long after direct examination in the presence of the jury commenced, Maynard responded to a wholly unrelated but hostile line of questioning by saying, Sir, he has two life sentences already. The defense moved for a mistrial, however, the court denied this motion and gave the following curative instruction: Ladies and gentlemen, you are instructed that the sentence that Mr. Cox was serving at Lake Correctional Institution is not relevant to this case in any way. He has never been convicted nor is he serving any sentence for homicide or any type of murder. The appellant contends that this situation is similar to the circumstances addressed by the Fourth and First District Courts of Appeal in Bozeman v. State, 698 So.2d 629 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997), and Thomas v. State, 701 So.2d 891 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997). In each of these cases, a witness for the State was wrongfully allowed to relay to the jury that the defendant was housed in a portion of the correctional facility reserved for the more violent inmates. Thomas, 701 So.2d at 892 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Bozeman, 698 So.2d at 630 (witness told the jury that the defendant was housed in a special management unit where the worst behaved ... violent ... inmates resided). As the juries in those cases were extraordinarily likely to infer from such testimony that the defendants had committed the acts of violence of which they were accused, each court of appeal reversed the defendant's conviction and remanded for a new trial. See Bozeman, 698 So.2d at 632; Thomas, 701 So.2d at 893. A close reading of Bozeman and Thomas, however, reveals that the information related to the jury in both cases was critical to the prosecution's factual theories, because both of the defendants were accused of attacking someone and both asserted at trial that they were only defending themselves. See Bozeman, 698 So.2d at 630; Thomas, 701 So.2d at 892. The fact of being housed in a particular section was used to enhance a predisposition for violence. In the instant case, the fact that Cox was serving two life sentences was certainly not critical to the State's case, and was not related to its theoriesthe jury already knew that he was an inmate at the Lake Correctional Institution where the events occurred. Additionally, defense counsel knew and assumed the risks of argumentatively questioning an openly hostile witness, and chose to do so in an extraordinarily combative manner. While the defense may have been chagrined that the jury was informed that the appellant was serving two life sentences due to the defense strategy, this information did not vitiate the entire trial. Duest v. State, 462 So.2d 446, 448 (Fla.1985). Therefore, a mistrial was not proper. See id.; Ferguson v. State, 417 So.2d 639, 641 (Fla.1982) (A motion for mistrial is addressed to the sound discretion of the trial judge and the power to declare a mistrial and discharge the jury should be exercised with great care and should be done only in cases of absolute necessity.). The trial court properly addressed the situation presented by giving the jury a proper curative instruction and proceeding with the trial. See Jackson v. State, 702 So.2d 607 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997); Riley v. State, 367 So.2d 1091, 1092 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1979). As the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying the defense's motion for a mistrial here, see Goodwin v. State, 751 So.2d 537, 546 (Fla.1999) (a trial court's ruling on a motion for mistrial is subject to an abuse of discretion standard of review), we deem this claim meritless.