Opinion ID: 1094084
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Prosecutorial Misconduct Claim

Text: In his final rule 3.850 claim, Guzman asserts that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct at trial by eliciting testimony about Martha Cronin's polygraph examination and about Guzman's collateral crime of drug possession. At trial, Guzman objected to the prosecutor's attempts to introduce this evidence, and the trial court ruled that the evidence should be excluded. Guzman does not assert error in the trial court's evidentiary rulings, but he claims that the trial proceeding was tainted by the prosecutor's references to inadmissible evidence, because these references placed inflammatory and prejudicial evidence before the factfinder. These claims are procedurally barred as they could have and should have been raised on direct appeal. See Brown v. State, 755 So.2d 616, 621 (Fla.2000). If considered on the merits, these claims fail because Guzman's trial was a nonjury trial, and the judge as finder of fact is presumed to have disregarded any inadmissible evidence or improper argument. See First Atlantic Nat'l Bank of Daytona Beach v. Cobbett, 82 So.2d 870, 871 (Fla.1955) (stating that a judge trying a case without a jury is in a position to evaluate the testimony and discard that which is improper or which has little or no evidentiary value). Even where a judge erroneously admits improper evidence, the judge as factfinder is presumed to disregard it. See, e.g., State v. Arroyo, 422 So.2d 50, 51 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982). Here, the judge did not err, but appropriately excluded inadmissible evidence. Given these evidentiary rulings, the judge a fortiori may be presumed to have disregarded the inadmissible evidence. Therefore, assuming arguendo that the prosecutor's attempts to introduce the evidence were improper, the attempts were harmless.