Burgess v. State, 4D98-1356.
| Decision Date | 16 February 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 4D98-1356.,4D98-1356. |
| Parties | Paul BURGESS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Bernard S. Fernandez, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and James J. Carney, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.
We affirm appellant's convictions for aggravated assault and battery and write to address one issue raised on appeal.
The court reporter's notes from the voir dire portion of the trial were destroyed by Hurricane Georges. The trial court held a hearing in an attempt to reconstruct the voir dire portion of the transcript. The court concluded "that the record has been reconstructed to [an] extent," which was that 1) "the defendant testified that two jurors wanted to hear what he had to say;" 2) the trial judge instructed the jury that the defendant had the right to remain silent; and 3) the jurors indicated that they were able to follow the law.
This case is controlled by Velez v. State, 645 So.2d 42 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994). Velez argued that three errors occurred during voir dire for which a transcript was unavailable, due to the loss of the court reporter's notes. Attempts to reconstruct this portion of the transcript were unsuccessful, but most of the voir dire and the trial were available. In affirming the conviction, this court observed that "not all omissions of transcript result in reversal for a new trial." Id. at 44 (citations omitted). The court identified the central issue as whether the missing portions of the transcript "are necessary for a complete review" of the case. Id. Because the matters raised by the defendant in Velez could be disposed of as a matter of law, this court found that the missing portions of the transcript were not necessary for a full review of the case.
In this case, appellant has not identified any prejudicial error that occurred during the voir dire, in spite of testifying at the hearing that he had "an accurate recollection of what happened during the voir dire." Appellant states in his brief that two jurors wanted to hear him testify and that the trial judge "instructed the panel on Appellant's right not to testify." Appellant does not contend that the trial court incorrectly instructed the jurors. Appellant does not argue that he was forced to accept any juror who said that he or she would...
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Jones v. State
...jury selection. See Jones, 870 So.2d at 904. The Fourth District rejected this argument, citing its decisions in Burgess v. State, 766 So.2d 293 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), and Velez v. State, 645 So.2d 42 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994), and this Court's decision in Darling v. State, 808 So.2d 145 (Fla.2002)......
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Louisias v. State, 3D04-2005.
...District rejected this argument, citing to the Florida Supreme Court's decision in Darling, and its decisions in Burgess v. State, 766 So.2d 293 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), and Velez v. State, 645 So.2d 42 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994). In affirming the Fourth District, the Florida Supreme Court noted that ......
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Jones v. State, 4D01-3810.
...during jury selection. Jones concedes he "does not know if errors occurred in voir dire." The State argues that Burgess v. State, 766 So.2d 293 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), governs the outcome of this issue on In Burgess, we relied on our earlier holding in Velez v. State, 645 So.2d 42 (Fla. 4th DC......
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