Jeffries v. State

• Decision Date: 22 January 2001
• Docket Number: No. 1D99-1267.,1D99-1267.
• Citation: 776 So.2d 335
• Parties: George JEFFRIES, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

776 So.2d 335

George JEFFRIES, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 1D99-1267.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

January 22, 2001.

Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender; Fred Parker Bingham, III, Assistant Public Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General; Bart Schneider, Assistant Attorney General, Karen M. Holland, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

BENTON, J.

George Jeffries appeals his conviction for armed robbery on grounds the trial court erroneously denied a motion to suppress, and on grounds the trial court erred, first in granting the state's motion to consolidate his case for trial with the case against Robert Rhodes, and then in denying his motions to sever the cases or, in the alternative, to empanel separate juries. We affirm.

On pretrial motions, Mr. Jeffries argued that he should be tried separately from his codefendant, Robert Rhodes, (or to a separate jury) because Mr. Rhodes planned to testify that Mr. Jeffries coerced him into committing the alleged robbery and attempting to use credit cards the robbery allegedly yielded. At trial, Mr. Rhodes did in fact testify to this effect. Relying on Rowe v. State, 404 So.2d 1176, 1177 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981) (holding the trial court "improperly forced the appellant `to stand trial before two accusers: the State and his codefendant'" (quoting Crum v. State, 398 So.2d 810, 811-12 (Fla.1981)), Mr. Jeffries contends that he, too, had "to stand trial before two accusers," that his defense and Mr. Rhodes's defense were mutually antagonistic, and that consolidation of the two cases likely confused the jury.

Even though codefendants are accused of perpetrating the same crime jointly, a severance may be constitutionally required. A defendant's rights under the Confrontation Clause and "to confront at trial adverse witnesses," Art. I, § 16(a), Fla. Const., are violated by introducing a non-testifying codefendant's out-of-court statement which, although admissible against the codefendant, does not fall within any firmly rooted hearsay exception rendering the statement admissible against the defendant. See Gray v. Maryland, 523 U.S. 185, 192-95, 118 S.Ct. 1151, 140 L.Ed.2d 294 (1998) (applying the rule of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968) in reversing a conviction based on a confession admissible only against the codefendant who confessed); Roundtree v. State, 546 So.2d 1042, 1046 (Fla.1989); Miller v. State, 756 So.2d 1072, 1072 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000); Jones v. State, 739 So.2d 1220, 1221 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999). See also Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116, 119 S.Ct. 1887, 144 L.Ed.2d 117 (1999); Conner v. State, 748 So.2d 950 (Fla.2000). These constitutional principles do not apply here because no out-of-court statement incriminating Mr. Jeffries was adduced, and because Mr. Rhodes testified at trial.

In the absence of a constitutional question, a motion to sever is addressed to the trial court's sound discretion.¹ See Miller, 756 So.2d at 1072; Daniels v. State, 634 So.2d 187, 192 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994). At least until jeopardy attaches, the trial court should grant a motion for severance whenever severance is "appropriate to promote a fair determination of the guilt or innocence of [any] defendant[ ]." Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.152(b)(1)(A). This is so even though the criteria for consolidation are, as here, otherwise satisfied. See Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.151(a) (authorizing consolidation for trial of indictments or informations charging two or more related offenses "triable in the same court and ... based on the same act or transaction or... connected acts or transactions").

Appellant's argument that severance was necessary to avoid jury confusion—like his argument in support of the suppression motion—is without logical force. Albeit damning, Mr. Rhodes's testimony was straightforward, to the point, and clear. That testimony aside, no other evidence came in against Mr. Jeffries on account of his standing trial together with Mr. Rhodes.² This circumstance may suffice to distinguish the present case from Rowe, where unspecified "[e]vidence was introduced by the co-defendant in an attempt to," 404 So.2d at 1176, prove Rowe's guilt.

In any event, Rowe does not purport to go beyond the holding in Crum, where Crum's codefendant also adduced evidence against Crum and where, importantly, Crum's counsel was unaware of the codefendant's strategy until after trial had begun. See Crum, 398 So.2d at 811; see also McCray v. State, 416 So.2d 804, 807 (Fla. 1982) ("The problem in Crum was not simply that the codefendants had antagonistic defenses. The problem was that one codefendant induced the other to believe that their defenses would be completely consistent and then, after jeopardy attached, decided to change his...