Jennings v. State, 98-2903.
| Citation | 744 So.2d 1126 |
| Decision Date | 20 October 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-2903.,98-2903. |
| Parties | William JENNINGS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Florida (US) |
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Marcy K. Allen, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Elaine L. Thompson, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.
Appellant, William Jennings, challenges his conviction and sentence for armed robbery and argues that the trial court erred in allowing the State to admit collateral crime evidence of a subsequent robbery attempt and erred in sentencing him pursuant to the Prisoner Releasee Reoffender Act because the Act is unconstitutional. We affirm.
Appellant was charged by information with robbery with a deadly weapon and tried by jury after a night auditor at the Comfort Inn notified police that appellant robbed him at gunpoint. Prior to trial, appellant moved the court in limine to exclude evidence that approximately one month after the armed robbery at issue in this case, appellant attempted to rob the same night auditor at the Holiday Inn Express. According to the night auditor, during the robbery at the Holiday Inn, appellant allegedly stated, "Aren't you the person I robbed at the Comfort Inn last month?" The trial court granted appellant's pre-trial motion in limine and ruled that appellant's statement to the victim would be admitted but the circumstances under which it was allegedly made—the robbery at the Holiday Inn—would be excluded. See Williams v. State, 110 So.2d 654 (Fla.),
cert. denied, 361 U.S. 847, 80 S.Ct. 102, 4 L.Ed.2d 86 (1959).
At trial, the judge receded from her ruling on the pre-trial motion in limine and stated that she would admit testimony regarding the attempted robbery at the Holiday Inn because appellant had "opened the door" to such evidence. When the court made its ruling, Jennings' counsel stated only, "Please forgive me, I'm not exactly sure what it was in the prior testimony that opened the door to this." Upon receiving an explanation that Jennings opened the door to such evidence when he testified that he committed the Comfort Inn robbery but denied having a gun, defense counsel made no further comments or objections. Defense counsel did not offer a specific objection which would have allowed the trial court to reconsider its ruling in light of the issue raised by appellant. Because appellant failed to contemporaneously object to the admission of the disputed evidence, we find that this issue is not preserved for review. See Lawrence v. State, 614 So.2d 1092, 1094 (Fla.1993)
; Coffee v. State, 699 So.2d 299, 300 (Fla. 2d DCA 1997). Furthermore, we find that based on the record in the instant case, even if the issue had been preserved, appellant would not have met his burden of demonstrating prejudicial error.
rev. denied, 727...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Chambers v. State, 1D99-1928.
...Woods. See also Reyes v. State, 742 So.2d 825 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999); Grant v. State, 745 So.2d 519 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999); Jennings v. State, 744 So.2d 1126 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999); Smith v. State, 753 So.2d 575 (Fla. 4th DCA In Woods and Reyes, this court certified the question whether the prison re......
-
Crumbley v. State
...rule to instances where the motion in limine was granted and then violated during the course of the trial. See also Jennings v. State, 744 So.2d 1126 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999) (finding that defense counsel's failure to offer a specific objection to evidence admitted after the court receded from a......
-
Smith v. State, 98-2894.
...727 So.2d 915 (Fla.1999). We, likewise, reject each of the other constitutional challenges raised by Smith. See Jennings v. State, 744 So.2d 1126 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999); Rollinson v. State, 743 So.2d 585 (Fla. 4th DCA In view of the victim's written statement seeking leniency, we agree with Sm......
-
Wencel v. State, 4D99-244.
...unusual punishment have also been rejected in prior cases. See Edwards v. State, 753 So.2d 578 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999); Jennings v. State, 744 So.2d 1126 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999); Rollinson, 743 So.2d at 588-89. The question of whether the act violates the single subject rule of Article III, Section......