Bell v. State Of Fla.
Citation | 33 So.3d 724 |
Decision Date | 22 April 2010 |
Docket Number | No. 1D08-5315.,1D08-5315. |
Parties | Gary Fontaine BELL, Appellant,v.STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
Court | Court of Appeal of Florida (US) |
Michael R. Rollo of Michael R. Rollo, P.A., Pensacola, for Appellant.
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, and Anthony J. Golden, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.
Appellant raises several issues concerning his convictions for lewd and lascivious battery and failure to appear. Because we find no error, we affirm; however, we write to address two of appellant's arguments.
In appellant's first issue, he asserts the trial court erred in failing to grant his motion to sever the lewd and lascivious charge from the failure to appear charge. In determining whether severance is warranted, a court must consider several factors including the temporal and geographic association of the crimes, the nature of the crimes, and the manner in which the crimes were committed. Garcia v. State, 568 So.2d 896, 899 (Fla.1990); see also Domis v. State, 755 So.2d 683, 685 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999); Sule v. State, 968 So.2d 99, 103 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007) ( ). “[F]or joinder to be appropriate, the crimes must be linked in a significant way.” Domis, 755 So.2d at 685. In Ellis v. State, 622 So.2d 991, 999-1000 (Fla.1993), the supreme court summarized the types of acts that could be deemed connected from just those occurring in an episodic sense by stating:
(Emphasis supplied). See also
Fotopoulos v. State, 608 So.2d 784 (Fla.1992). In the instant case, the record evidences there was a significant separation in time from the date the lewd and lascivious battery occurred to the date appellant failed to appear. However, the two charges are “causally linked” to one another. It is undisputed appellant did not make an appearance at crucial court proceedings on the lewd and lascivious charge. Because the lewd and lascivious charge was the but-for cause of the failure to appear, based on the language in Ellis and Fotopoulos, the two counts were “causally linked” and were properly joined.
In his third issue, appellant asserts improper comments made during closing argument warrant reversal. During the first phase of closing argument, the prosecutor stated:
(Emphasis added). These comments were objected to contemporaneously, and thus, the issue was properly preserved. A comment suggesting a witness gave “uncontradicted” or “uncontroverted” evidence is an impermissible comment on appellant's right to remain silent in those cases where the defendant is the only individual...
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