Dorsey v. State, 93-720
| Decision Date | 05 July 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-720,93-720 |
| Citation | 639 So.2d 158 |
| Parties | 19 Fla. L. Weekly D1465 Sammy DORSEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and Steven A. Been, Asst. Public Defender, Tallahassee, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Wendy S. Morris, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.
The appellant challenges his convictions and sentences for possession of cocaine and sale of cocaine within one thousand feet of a school. Because we conclude that the trial court erred in allowing testimony that the area where the appellant was arrested was known for drug activity, we reverse.
Gainesville Police Officer Willis participated in a police bust/buy operation in which he dressed in plainclothes and drove an unmarked car to attempt to purchase illegal drugs. Willis pulled up to a group of three or four persons and purchased a rock of cocaine from one of the persons in exchange for a twenty dollar bill. As Willis drove away, he transmitted a description of the cocaine seller to other officers, who immediately arrived on the scene and arrested the appellant. The appellant was charged with one count of possession of cocaine and one count of sale of cocaine within one thousand feet of a school. At trial, the appellant asserted that he was not the person who had possessed and sold the cocaine. The jury found the appellant guilty of both counts.
The appellant challenges the admissibility of Willis's trial testimony that the arrest scene was known for drug activity. The supreme court has held that the mere identification of an area as a high crime area does not per se constitute prejudicial error. Gillion v. State, 573 So.2d 810 (Fla.1991). Whether such testimony is unduly prejudicial depends upon the facts of each case. Id. at 812. In Gillion, the officer did not attempt to characterize the area as one of high crime, but rather relayed what criminal activity he had actually seen while driving through the area just prior to the defendant's arrest. The court found that testimony "relevant to clarify for the jury why this area was selected for this police operation, why this is where a drug buy would be made." Id. at 812. Subsequent cases have likewise distinguished between testimony reporting an officer's observations of presently occurring criminal activity and testimony simply characterizing an arrest area as a high crime area. See Lowder v. State, 589 So.2d 933, 935 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991), dismissed, 598 So.2d 78 (Fla.1992); Hutchinson v. State, 580 So.2d 257 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991).
In the present case, Officer Willis was not reporting his observations, but was characterizing the area as a high crime area, i.e., "known for a lot of drug activity [where police] go on a regular basis." The testimony, then, unlike the testimony in Gillion, was not admissible to explain why police were in the area. See Lowder; Hutchinson. Thus, the remaining question is whether the error in admitting the testimony was harmless.
The state urges that the error was harmless, relying upon Conner v. State, 582 So.2d 750 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991), in which the court determined that a...
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Lewis v. State, 1D98-4813.
..."character attack" associating Appellant with an area characterized as the site of large-scale drug transactions. See Dorsey v. State, 639 So.2d 158 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994); Wilkins v. State, 561 So.2d 1339 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990). Counsel also asked for the jury to be instructed to disregard the qu......
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Lelieve v. State
...offered to establish a chain of events or whether it is being offered solely to establish bad character or propensity. Dorsey v. State, 639 So.2d 158 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994). Such references are also considered by some courts to be less harmful in those cases in which the defendant denies being......
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Goodwin v. State
...bad neighborhood testimony from other witnesses constituted reversible error. However, we acknowledge that in Dorsey v. State, 639 So.2d 158 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994), and Lowder v. State, 589 So.2d 933 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991), a single "bad neighborhood" reference constituted reversible error. We not......
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Wheeler v. State, 96-1199
...arrest scene was known for drug activity was the basis for reversing a conviction for possession and sale of cocaine in Dorsey v. State, 639 So.2d 158 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994). In Dorsey, as in this case, a plainclothes officer drove an unmarked car and attempted to purchase illegal drugs as par......