Marrero v. State, 75-1770

Decision Date16 February 1977
Docket NumberNo. 75-1770,75-1770
PartiesBenito MARRERO, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
CourtFlorida District Court of Appeals

Leonard J. Holton, of Hoffer & Sheffey, Zephyrhills, for appellant.

Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Charles Corces, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.

GRIMES, Acting Chief Judge.

This is an appeal from a conviction for possession of narcotics paraphernalia.

The day before the trial, appellant had been tried on twelve counts of breaking and entering and twelve counts of grand larceny. The same jury venire from which the jurors were drawn for the instant case had sat through the voir dire on appellant's case the previous day. Thus, all the jurors were aware that appellant had been charged with numerous crimes though apparently none of them were aware of the disposition of the charges.

Before the trial commenced, defense counsel objected to the jury venire because of these circumstances. The prosecutor responded that the trials were being held close together because of the appellant's motion for speedy trial. The court overruled the objection, and the case proceeded. We believe the court erred in failing to sustain appellant's challenge to the jury venire.

Subject to certain exceptions not applicable here, it is error for a witness to testify about the defendant's arrest for an unrelated crime. Clark v. State, 337 So.2d 858 (Fla.2d DCA 1976). The admission of 'mug shots' has been held to be error because it constitutes an impermissible reference to the defendant's prior arrest record. Whitehead v. State, 279 So.2d 99 (Fla.2d DCA 1973). The theory of these holdings is that a jury is bound to be unfairly prejudiced against the accused by reason of the knowledge of his arrest for another crime. Allowing the jury to sit through the voir dire of appellant's trial on totally separate charges on the preceding day clearly falls in the same category.

We find the circumstances of his case to be substantially distinguishable from a situation in which a potential juror may have read in the newspaper about the defendant's arrest for a collateral crime.

The existence of a speedy trial problem does not eliminate the need for the state to provide the accused with a trial before a fair and impartial jury.

We also have some qualms about the propriety of the court having required the appellant to exhibit the needle marks on his...

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6 cases
  • State v. Harper
    • United States
    • Louisiana Supreme Court
    • April 4, 1983
    ...the bench and told the judge that they could not be impartial because of their familiarity with previous trial) and Marrero v. State, 343 So.2d 883 (Fla.App.1977) (analogizing overlapping venires to introduction of inadmissible "other crimes" Our legislature has specifically provided that a......
  • State v. Quintana
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of New Mexico
    • August 26, 2009
    ...of a jury in a case that ended in mistrial sat through voir dire on the second trial). Defendant also cites to Marrero v. State, 343 So.2d 883 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1977) to support her proposition. In that case, the defendant had two trials that were one day apart. The potential jury pool for ......
  • U.S. v. Gillis, 90-8064
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit
    • August 12, 1991
    ...the evidence before" them. Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 217, 102 S.Ct. 940, 946, 71 L.Ed.2d 78 (1982); see also Marrero v. Florida, 343 So.2d 883 (Fla.App. 2 Dist.1977) (concluding that overlapping venire members were bound to be unfairly prejudiced due to their knowledge of the defenda......
  • Warren v. State, s. AQ-458
    • United States
    • Florida District Court of Appeals
    • December 30, 1983
    ...request for a curative instruction. While we agree that it was error to allow the admission of such testimony, see Marrero v. State, 343 So.2d 883 (Fla. 2d DCA 1977), we do not find that the error was so egregious as to merit a mistrial. The power to declare a mistrial and discharge the jur......
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