Court Opinion

ID: 9919206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-17 18:03:12.685031+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:10.488484
License: Public Domain

FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                STATE OF FLORIDA
                 _____________________________

                        No. 1D2022-0836
                 _____________________________

RUBEN CHRISTOPHER GOODSON,

    Appellant,

    v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

    Appellee.
                 _____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.
J. Lee Marsh, Judge.

                        January 17, 2024

WINOKUR, J.

     Ruben Christopher Goodson was convicted of attempted first-
degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. On
appeal, Goodson argues that the trial court erred in denying his
motion in limine to exclude evidence that he was on probation at
the time he committed the crime and in denying his motion to
suppress an out-of-court lineup identification by the victim. We
affirm.

      In the early hours of October 22, 2019, the victim, Melanie
Gonzalez, and her friend, Catherine Fernandez, were returning
home when they got a flat tire. While Fernandez repaired the flat
tire, Goodson—a friend of Fernandez’s—arrived to help. After the
tire was fixed, the three returned to Goodson’s apartment to
consume alcohol and smoke cannabis. While at the apartment
Goodson told Gonzalez and Fernandez several times that he was
under house arrest. After disclosing his house arrest status,
Goodson discovered that Gonzalez was applying to work for the
Florida Department of Corrections. After that conversation, the
mood suddenly changed.

     Gonzalez told Fernandez that she felt uncomfortable and the
two decided to leave. Goodson offered to walk them out and
instructed the two ladies to walk in front of him. When Gonzalez
tried to enter her car, Goodson pulled out a handgun and shot her.
The bullet went through her nasal cavity into her left cheek, but
Gonzalez managed to drive away and find police officers nearby.

    After Tallahassee police investigated the incident and
Gonzalez went to the hospital for her injury, Gonzalez identified
Goodson as her shooter in a photographic lineup. Before the lineup,
Gonzalez received Goodson’s phone number and Instagram
account handle from Fernandez. When Gonzalez met with Officer
Copelin at the police station, he instructed her not to view the
Instagram account before the lineup. She complied and assured
him she had not seen his account prior to her arrival.

     During the lineup, Gonzalez lingered on Goodson’s
photograph several times and soon disqualified others. After
Gonzalez selected Goodson as her shooter, the officer returned to
the room and asked Gonzalez to “pull up” the Instagram account
she had previously given him. Gonzalez immediately recognized
the pictures from the Instagram account as Goodson’s.

    The same day, Goodson was arrested, and a warrant was
issued to search his apartment. Tallahassee police recovered a
hoodie matching the description Gonzalez gave and an AR-15
behind the dryer machine. The firearm used in Gonzalez’s
shooting, however, was not recovered.

    Goodson proceeded to a bifurcated trial and the jury returned
a guilty verdict for both charges. He was sentenced to forty years
in prison for attempted first-degree murder and fifteen years for
possession of a firearm as a convicted felon, to run concurrently.

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                                  I.

     Before trial, Goodson moved to exclude evidence and
testimony about having been on probation when he shot Gonzalez.
The trial court denied the motion, concluding the evidence was
relevant, its probative value was not substantially outweighed by
its prejudicial effect, and not unnoticed collateral crime evidence
pursuant to section 90.404(2)(d)1., Florida Statutes. We review the
trial court’s evidentiary ruling for abuse of discretion. See Jones v.
State, 278 So. 3d 903, 904 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019) (citing Bass v. State,
147 So. 3d 1033, 1035 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014)).

    “Discretion is abused only when no reasonable person ‘would
take the view adopted by the trial court,’” Figueroa-Sanabria v.
State, 366 So. 3d 1035, 1048 (Fla. 2023) (quoting Canakaris v.
Canakaris, 382 So. 2d 1197, 1203 (Fla. 1980)). Here, we cannot say
that.

    At trial, it was established that Goodson had a likely motive
to shoot Gonzalez—she desired to work for the Department of
Corrections and Goodson was violating his probation terms in her
presence. Accordingly, the court did not abuse its discretion in
concluding that evidence of Goodson’s probation status at the time
of the shooting was relevant and probative to the jury’s
consideration of why Goodson would have shot Gonzalez.

                                 II.

     Goodson also argues that the trial court erred in denying his
motion to suppress Gonzalez’s out-of-court lineup identification
because the officer showed Gonzalez Goodson’s Instagram account
after the lineup. The trial court rejected Goodson’s arguments,
finding that a police officer cannot call into question the veracity
of an out-of-court lineup identification after the lineup was
concluded. We agree.

    The scrutiny of an out-of-court photo lineup involves two
questions. First, whether “the police employ[ed] an unnecessarily
suggestive procedure in obtaining an out-of-court identification,”
Grant v. State, 390 So. 2d 341, 343 (Fla. 1980), and second, “if so,
considering all the circumstances, did the suggestive procedure

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give rise to a substantial likelihood of irreparable
misidentification[.]” Alahad v. State, 362 So. 3d 190, 198 (Fla.
2023) (citing Grant, 390 So. 2d at 343). Moreover, when reviewing
the “mixed question presented by a trial court’s ruling on a motion
to suppress an out-of-court identification” we apply the abuse of
discretion standard of review. See Alahad, 362 So. 3d at 201 (citing
Sims v. Brown, 574 So. 2d 131, 133 (Fla. 1991)). Here, we cannot
say that the trial court abused its discretion in concluding that
Gonzalez’s lineup identification was not unnecessarily suggestive
or likely to lead to an irreparable misidentification.

     Nothing in the record before us shows Tallahassee police used
suggestive tactics to lead Gonzalez to select Goodson as her
shooter. The record shows that the appropriate procedure under
section 92.70(3), Florida Statutes, was followed to ensure that an
independent officer with no knowledge of the incident
administered the lineup. We reject Goodson’s argument that a
police officer can impair the veracity of a lineup identification after
the lineup has concluded.

    Indeed, in Rimmer v. State, the supreme court found that an
identification where a witness “had already selected appellant
from the photo spread” when a detective made a suggestive
comment was not improper. 825 So. 2d 304, 317–18 (Fla. 2002).
The same is true here. The officer here did not show Gonzalez
Goodson’s Instagram photos until after she had identified Goodson
as her shooter in the lineup.

     Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its
discretion in finding that Gonzalez’s lineup was not unnecessarily
suggestive, and we need not address the second prong of the
inquiry. See Rimmer, 825 So. 2d at 316.

    AFFIRMED.

B.L. THOMAS and LONG, JJ., concur.

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                _____________________________

    Not final until disposition of any timely and
    authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
    9.331.
               _____________________________

Jessica J. Yeary, Public Defender, John J. Knowles, Megan Lynne
Long, and Pamela D. Presnell, Assistant Public Defenders,
Tallahassee, for Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Heather Flanagan Ross,
Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

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