Court Opinion

ID: 9781008
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 15:10:21.92864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:09:53.755337
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                             FOURTH DISTRICT

                      ORLANDO ORATES PRADO,
                            Appellant,

                                    v.

                          STATE OF FLORIDA,
                               Appellee.

                             No. 4D22-1347

                            [August 30, 2023]

  Appeal from the Circuit Court of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm
Beach County; Scott Suskauer, Jr., Judge; L.T. Case No.
2018CF006752AMB.

   Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Christine C. Geraghty,
Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

   Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Kimberly T. Acuña,
Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

FORST, J.

   Appellant Orlando Orates Prado appeals from his judgment and
sentence on two sexual battery counts after a jury trial. On appeal,
Appellant challenges: (1) the constitutionality of the six-person jury that
convicted him; (2) the trial court’s decision to admit expert testimony for
the State; and (3) the trial court’s decision to admit child hearsay
statements into evidence. Appellant failed to preserve issue (1), and we
have already rejected this issue on the merits. See Albritton v. State, 360
So. 3d 1145, 1147 (Fla. 4th DCA 2023); Guzman v. State, 350 So. 3d 72,
73 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022), rev. denied, No. SC22-1597, 2023 WL 3830251
(Fla. June 6, 2023). We thus affirm on this issue without further
discussion. We further conclude the State’s expert testimony was proper
and summarily affirm on issue (2). We write to address issue (3) and, as
discussed below, we affirm.

                               Background
   One morning in 2018, L.S., the child victim (“the Victim”) in this case,
was in apparent discomfort in bed. When her mother, who had been
bathing in the next room, asked her what was wrong, the Victim pointed
to her genitals and indicated that it hurt. When the mother asked
Appellant, the Victim’s stepfather, what had happened, he answered that
he did not know. The Victim then indicated that she had fallen.

    After a family picnic later that day, the Victim spent the night with her
maternal grandmother (“the grandmother”). While helping the Victim to
bathe, the grandmother discovered injuries on the Victim’s genitals. At
first, the Victim repeated that she had fallen. The grandmother pressed
the Victim, who began to cry and begged the grandmother not to say
anything. The Victim then explained that Appellant had taken down her
pants and put his penis between her legs and began to press or rub it
against her earlier that day.

   The grandmother took the Victim to the hospital, where an emergency
room physician examined her and discovered injuries consistent with the
child’s account of abuse. The Victim also repeated her account to the
police officer (“the Officer”) who responded to the emergency room.

   Appellant was charged by information with four counts of sexual
battery. The State filed an amended notice of intent to offer child hearsay
evidence through four sources, including the Child Protection Team
(“CPT”) Interviewer, the grandmother, and the Officer. Appellant objected
and the court held a hearing on the notice.

    The trial court granted the State’s request to introduce child hearsay
statements with respect to the three aforementioned witnesses. The trial
court made extensive findings on the reliability of the Victim’s hearsay
statements as required by section 90.803(23), Florida Statutes (2022). The
trial court made no express finding on the grandmother’s trustworthiness
as a source.

   At the start of trial, Appellant renewed his objection to child hearsay
and the trial court granted a standing objection. Appellant did not
specifically object to the sufficiency of the factual reliability and
trustworthiness findings in the order permitting child hearsay evidence.

   The grandmother testified to the conversation in which the Victim
described the alleged battery by Appellant. The Officer and the CPT
interviewer also testified that the Victim had given the same account of the
abuse. Separately, the emergency room physician testified that he had
discovered injuries on the Victim’s body consistent with the alleged

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battery. An additional witness, the CPT medical director, similarly testified
the Victim’s injuries were consistent with her account. Finally, the
Victim’s testimony at trial was consistent with hearsay statements which
were attributed to her.

   The jury found Appellant guilty as charged on the two sexual battery
counts. The trial court adjudicated Appellant guilty and entered two
concurrent life sentences. This appeal timely followed.

                                   Analysis

   Appellant challenges only the trial court’s decision to admit the Victim’s
hearsay statement through the grandmother’s testimony, arguing the
court failed to make adequate trustworthiness and reliability findings as
required by section 90.803(23)(c), Florida Statutes (2018). “We review both
a trial court’s determination that a statement is reliable under section
90.803(23) and the sufficiency of the trial court’s findings of fact for an
abuse of discretion.” Lot v. State, 306 So. 3d 1231, 1234 (Fla. 4th DCA
2020) (quoting Elghomari v. State, 66 So. 3d 416, 418–19 (Fla. 4th DCA
2011)).

   As a preliminary matter, we note that Appellant has failed to preserve
this issue for our review. Preserving a claim that the trial court failed to
make the required factual findings under section 90.803(23)(c), requires a
contemporaneous objection specifically concerning the sufficiency of those
findings. See, e.g., Coleman v. State, 315 So. 3d 166, 167 (Fla. 1st DCA
2021) (concluding the appellant’s challenge to the sufficiency of section
90.803(23)(c) findings was unpreserved because the appellant had “never
raised any objection concerning the sufficiency of the trial court’s findings
under section 90.803(23)” (quoting Elwell v. State, 954 So. 2d 104, 109
(Fla. 2d DCA 2007))).

   Here, Appellant objected to the admission of child hearsay, but never
raised the sufficiency of the trial court’s findings under section 90.803(23).
This issue is thus unpreserved, and we review for fundamental error. See
Jackson v. State, 983 So. 2d 562, 569 (Fla. 2008). “Fundamental error is
error that ‘reaches down into the validity of the trial itself to the extent that
a verdict of guilty could not have been obtained without the assistance of
the alleged error.’” Gentry v. State, 300 So. 3d 233, 237 (Fla. 4th DCA
2020) (citation omitted).

   Section 90.803, Florida Statutes (2018), provides exceptions to the bar
on hearsay evidence, and subsection (23) details the exception for
statements of a child victim and provides that the trial court “shall make

                                       3
specific findings of fact, on the record, as to the basis for its ruling under
this subsection.” § 90.803(23)(c), Fla. Stat. (2018).

    For child-victim hearsay statements to be admissible, the statements
“must meet two specific reliability requirements: (1) the source of the
information through which the statement was reported must indicate
trustworthiness; and (2) the time, content, and circumstances of the
statement must reflect that the statement provides sufficient safeguards of
reliability.” State v. Townsend, 635 So. 2d 949, 954 (Fla. 1994).

   Here, the trial court considered evidence as to reliability and made
extensive factual findings on thirteen factors, including those provided by
section 90.803(23), and those enumerated by our supreme court in
Townsend, 635 So. 2d at 954.

    Because the trial court made “all requisite findings of reliability under
section 90.803(23) and set them out in detail,” it satisfied the requirements
of section 90.803(23)(c). Elghomari, 66 So. 3d at 420. Thus, no error
occurred with respect to the trial court’s reliability findings. However, the
trial court failed to make a specific finding as to the trustworthiness of the
grandmother as a source of the Victim’s hearsay statements. See
Townsend, 635 So. 2d at 956–57. This was error. Id.

    Nonetheless, the grandmother’s testimony was “cumulative in nature,
and, therefore, harmless.” Cannon v. State, 315 So. 3d 732, 741–42 (Fla.
4th DCA 2021) (quoting English v. State, 43 So. 3d 871, 872 (Fla. 5th DCA
2010)). The challenged testimony regarding child hearsay statements was
cumulative to other evidence, including the trial testimony of the Victim,
the Officer, and the CPT Interviewer. Appellant has not challenged the
admission of child hearsay through these other witnesses. Two medical
exams also disclosed injuries on the Victim’s body corroborating her
account. Given the significant evidence supporting the Victim’s account,
admission of the grandmother’s testimony without a ruling on her
reliability was harmless error. See Hojan v. State, 3 So. 3d 1204, 1210
(Fla. 2009) (finding any error harmless in admitting officer’s testimony as
to surviving victim’s statements as there was substantial testimony by
other witnesses that duplicated the officer’s testimony); Heuss v. State,
660 So. 2d 1052, 1057–58 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995) (impermissibly admitted
child hearsay testimony did not affect the verdict where it was cumulative
of properly admitted evidence).

                                Conclusion

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    The trial court erred in permitting the grandmother’s testimony without
a finding as to her trustworthiness as a source of child-victim hearsay
under section 90.803(23). As discussed above, however, any error was
harmless. And Appellant’s remaining claims of error are meritless. We
affirm the judgment in its entirety.

   Affirmed.

KLINGENSMITH, C.J., and CONNER, J., concur.

                           *         *        *

   Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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