Court Opinion

ID: 9374024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-22 16:13:43.953661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:44.196605
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                              FOURTH DISTRICT

                      SHERMAINE JERMON LOWE,
                             Appellant,

                                      v.

                           STATE OF FLORIDA,
                                Appellee.

                               No. 4D22-101

                            [February 22, 2023]

  Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, St.
Lucie County; Robert E. Belanger, Judge; L.T. Case No. 562019CF002999.

   Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Abdulmalik Ramelize,
Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

  Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Jessenia J.
Concepcion, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

KUNTZ, J.

   Shermaine Jermon Lowe appeals his conviction and sentence after a
jury found him guilty of violating section 790.23(1)(a), Florida Statutes
(2019), a statute that makes it unlawful for a felon to have a firearm in
their care, custody, possession, or control. Lowe argues the trial court
erred when it ruled that all of his objections to inadmissible evidence were
waived, including during trial, because his motion in limine was
purportedly untimely. We agree with Lowe and reverse his conviction and
sentence.

    Lowe filed a motion in limine asking the trial court to exclude references
to the firearm being stolen as irrelevant and prejudicial, and statements
that a hotel clerk made to the arresting officer before Lowe’s arrest as
inadmissible hearsay. The trial court treated the motion as an untimely
motion to suppress and denied the motion without addressing any of the
motion’s arguments or the merits of the evidentiary objections. When the
trial began, Lowe renewed the motion, but the court again declined to
address the merits. Instead, the court ruled Lowe had waived his
evidentiary objections.
   The trial court erred when it declined to consider the motion in limine
or the corresponding evidentiary claims at trial. Even if the motion were
characterized as a motion to suppress, the court could consider it. Florida
Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.190(g)(4) generally requires a motion to
suppress to be filed before trial, but the rule allows the court to consider
the motion at trial. So even as a motion to suppress, Lowe’s motion was
not barred because Rule 3.190 does not require motions to suppress to be
heard before trial, and failure to file a pretrial motion to suppress does not
result in a waiver of the defendant’s right to file a motion during trial.
Savoie v. State, 422 So. 2d 308, 310 (Fla. 1982).

    The court erred when it categorically refused to consider Lowe’s motion,
and later when it refused to consider Lowe’s objections to specific portions
of evidence at trial. We therefore reverse Lowe’s conviction and sentence
and remand for a new trial.

   Reversed and remanded.

GROSS and DAMOORGIAN, JJ., concur.

                            *         *         *

    Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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