State v. Zenobia, 93-0053
| Decision Date | 11 February 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 93-0053,93-0053 |
| Citation | 614 So.2d 1139 |
| Parties | 18 Fla. L. Weekly D512 STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Charles ZENOBIA, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Barry E. Krischer, State Atty., and Ellen D. Roberts, Asst. State Atty., West Palm Beach, for petitioner.
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Louis G. Carres, Asst. Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for respondent.
We deny the state's petition for a writ of common law certiorari and write only to respond to Judge Dell's dissent. We view a judge's pretrial ruling on a motion in limine as entirely tentative. After evidence is actually adduced at the trial, the judge may suffer a change of mind and decide--contrary to a pretrial ruling--that evidence may have to be admitted or excluded. For that reason, we begin our analysis of a petition for certiorari seeking reversal of a pretrial exclusion of evidence with an inclination to forego extraordinary review.
When the pretrial exclusion is attended also by factual rulings by the trial judge--e.g., that even if relevant its prejudicial aspects outweigh its probative value--we are doubly reluctant to reverse such an exclusion. We recognize that the failure to review it now may all but render it unreviewable, because the state is not permitted to appeal an acquittal. That only means to us that there exists the theoretical possibility of pretrial, extraordinary review; it does not mean, however, that we should lessen our initial reluctance to disagree with a judge's factual finding.
To us, this is just another instance where the state has indicated an interest in proving crime A by showing little more than that the defendant committed crime B. Aside from the fact that the state's notice shows that both crimes involve a violation of the same statute and that both episodes have some features in common, the state has failed utterly to suggest in its notice what particular aspect--i.e., motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, or lack of consent--it really seeks to prove by such evidence. Hence, we think the kind of notice used here should be grounds for the exclusion of the evidence, simply because of the insufficiency of the notice.
Beyond that, however, the trial judge's written order excluding this section 90.404(1)(a) evidence contains particularized findings, holding that none of the grounds in the statute apply here. He said, e.g., that consent, modus operandi and identification--the only statutory possibilities he apparently found even remotely possible from the facts--are not in issue. He also expressly found as a factual matter that prejudice would outweigh any possible relevance served by this evidence. 1
A primary consideration in this issue is how the other crimes evidence is going to play at trial. If the use of such evidence threatens to become the central focus of the trial, or if that evidence is significantly different from the evidence of the crime on trial in such a way that it might so "poison the well" that all the jury instructions in the world may not conceivably undo, then under those circumstances the trial judge should certainly exclude it.
That is precisely what the trial judge found here, and there is undeniably evidence supporting his view of the pertinent facts. These factual findings are uniquely within his province and not in ours. For us to say that the probative value of this excluded evidence exceeds any prejudice, however, we would have to substitute our own fact-finding for his.
We therefore deny the state's petition for a writ of common law certiorari in this case.
PETITION DENIED.
The State of Florida filed a petition for writ of common law certiorari challenging the trial court's order denying its motion to introduce evidence of similar crimes, wrongs or acts. The State charged respondent with armed kidnapping, armed sexual battery, and seventeen counts of sexual battery with force or...
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Barnes v. State, 98-0299.
...4th DCA 1995); State v. Tremblay, 642 So.2d 64 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994); Wall v. State, 615 So.2d 822 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993); State v. Zenobia, 614 So.2d 1139 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993); Turner v. State, 611 So.2d 12 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992); State v. Diandrea, 602 So.2d 1322 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992); State v. Allr......
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Quinn v. State
...because it did not state the purpose of its use goes beyond an express requirement of the statute. To the extent State v. Zenobia, 614 So.2d 1139 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993) appears to require specific reasons or explanations of what the jury might deduce from the collateral crime evidence, we resp......
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Hawker v. State
...694 So.2d 149, 150 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997)("A judge's pretrial ruling on a motion in limine is `entirely tentative.' State v. Zenobia, 614 So.2d 1139 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993). Such a ruling may be based on an incomplete oral proffer or on the trial court's limited understanding of the issues in the ......
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Pitts v. State
...its notice "should be grounds for the exclusion of the [collateral crime] evidence, simply because of the insufficiency of the notice." 614 So.2d 1139, 1140 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993). This statement is dicta, but even if it wasn't, we would not follow Zenobia . Instead, we would follow the cases ......