Court Opinion

ID: 9901799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-22 16:03:36.624913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:40.343468
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                               FOURTH DISTRICT

                      KEVIN FRANKLIN HUGHES,
                             Appellant,

                                     v.

                          STATE OF FLORIDA,
                               Appellee.

                            No. 4D2022-3283

                          [November 22, 2023]

  Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit,
Okeechobee County; Michael J. McNicholas, Judge; L.T. Case No. 2019-
CF-000246.

   Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Robert Porter, Assistant Public
Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

  Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Lindsay A. Warner,
Senior Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

   Affirmed.

GROSS and DAMOORGIAN, JJ., concur.
WARNER, J., dissents with opinion.

WARNER, J., dissenting.

   In this appeal of appellant’s first-degree murder conviction for killing
his wife, I would reverse for a new trial because of improper closing
argument by the prosecutor in arguing facts not in evidence, which I do
not deem as harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., Evans v.
State, 177 So. 3d 1219 (Fla. 2015), receded from on other grounds by
Johnson v. State, 252 So. 3d 1114, 1117–18 (Fla. 2018).

                           *          *          *

   Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.