Heck v. State, 4D99-2265.
| Decision Date | 27 December 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 4D99-2265.,4D99-2265. |
| Citation | 774 So.2d 844 |
| Parties | Robert HECK, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Tatjana Ostapoff, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Claudine M. LaFrance, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.
Appellant, Robert Heck, was convicted of aggravated battery. He claims on appeal that the court erred in giving a further instruction on the meaning of "great bodily harm" to answer a jury question. We affirm, concluding that the instruction, even if error, was harmless. Appellant also claims that the court erred in allowing cross-examination regarding prior convictions, but we conclude that appellant opened the door to such cross-examination through his testimony on direct examination. Finally, appellant raised an objection to one of his prior convictions used to qualify him for habitual offender status. Because this objection was not preserved, we affirm his sentence.
Appellant was charged and tried for an assault on a female victim with whom he had been living. When the victim came home one evening, she found her mobile home in a mess and appellant dismantling his waterbed. The victim was pressured to assist appellant in removing the waterbed in his vehicle. During the drive to his destination, appellant struck the victim twice on the head with his hand. The altercation continued after arrival, as the victim tried to escape and was grabbed by the hair and dragged back to the vehicle. He threatened her with a paint tool held to her throat. Appellant also punched the victim in the eye, sending her falling backward. As a result of the punch, she suffered a broken eye socket. One-third of the bone is missing, and the fragments are in the victim's sinuses. Appellant testified that the victim injured her eye when she fell and struck it.
The court gave the jury the standard instructions for aggravated battery, which require the jury to find that the defendant intentionally touched or struck the victim against her will and, in committing the battery, intentionally caused great bodily harm to the victim. The jury asked the judge to define "great bodily harm." Over a defense objection, the trial court used a definition taken from Coronado v. State, 654 So.2d 1267, 1270 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995), and told the jury "[g]reat bodily harm in the context of aggravated battery means great as distinguished from slight, trivial, minor or moderate harm [and][a]s such, does not include mere bruises as are likely to be inflicted in a simple assault and battery." Appellant did not suggest an alternative. He simply noted his objection and requested that the jury be advised to rely on the definitions given in the standard jury instructions. However, as the trial court pointed out, there is no definition of great bodily harm in the standard jury instructions.
This court has previously noted that "what is important is that sufficient instructions—not necessarily academically perfect ones—be given as adequate guidance to enable a jury to arrive at a verdict based upon the law as applied to the evidence before them." State v. Bryan, 287 So.2d 73, 75 (Fla.1973); Avila v. State, 745 So.2d 983, 985 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999). See also CSX Transp., Inc. v. Whittler, 584 So.2d 579, 586 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991)
(). We conclude that the instructions, viewed as a whole, fairly state the applicable law. In McKnight v. State, 492 So.2d 450 (Fla. 4th DCA 1986), we noted that there is no precise legal definition of "great bodily harm." The definition used by the trial court was not erroneous and comported with the case law.
However, we also conclude that even if the jury instruction was error, it was harmless. The victim's orbital fracture,...
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