Whitfield v. State
| Decision Date | 14 June 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 64051,64051 |
| Parties | Clifton Lee WHITFIELD, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Randolph P. Murrell, Asst. Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, for petitioner.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and David P. Gauldin, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for respondent.
This cause is before us on petition for review of Whitfield v. State, 433 So.2d 1285 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983), which is in express and direct conflict with Jackson v. State, 435 So.2d 984 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const.
Jerry Gosby testified for the state that he had originally participated in a conspiracy involving Paris Nelson and petitioner, the object of which was to kill Bobby Rivers. The original plan was to kill Rivers in his apartment using .38 and .32 caliber pistols. Rivers' body was discovered on a dirt road, and from it were removed one .38 caliber and two .32 caliber bullets. A fingerprint of Nelson, who was seen with Rivers the previous evening, was discovered inside Rivers' car.
Gosby, arrested on another charge, informed the police of the Rivers conspiracy, resulting in the arrest of Nelson and petitioner. Two pistols, .32 and .38 caliber, were found in a bag at a service station where petitioner worked. Petitioner's fingerprint was lifted from the bag.
Petitioner and Nelson were charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Before trial, Nelson told a cellmate, Dorio Daniels, that petitioner shot Rivers. Later Nelson told another cellmate, Gregory Williamson, that he had shot Rivers with petitioner's guns and then returned the guns to petitioner. While petitioner awaited trial, some eight months after his incarceration and initial fingerprinting, he refused to be fingerprinted a second time. The jury found petitioner guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and manslaughter.
The trial court instructed the jury, over objection, that petitioner's refusal to submit to fingerprinting was a circumstance from which consciousness of guilt could be inferred. The First District Court of Appeal noted that the "instruction appears to be an unnecessary comment on the evidence, and a matter more appropriately argued by counsel," Whitfield, 433 So.2d at 1287, but affirmed nonetheless, citing cases wherein instructions on flight have been affirmed. We find that the instruction was an impermissible comment evaluating the evidence. See Tanner v. State, 197 So.2d 842 (Fla. 1st DCA), cert. denied, 201 So.2d 898 (Fla.1967). A trial court should scrupulously avoid commenting on the evidence in a case. Lee v. State, 324 So.2d 694 (Fla. 1st DCA 1976). Especially in a criminal prosecution, the trial court should take great care not to intimate to the jury the court's opinion as to the weight, character, or credibility of any evidence adduced. Seward v. State, 59 So.2d 529 (Fla.1952).
An instruction on flight, permitted in the limited circumstance where there is significantly more evidence against the defendant than flight standing alone, is an exception to the general rule prohibiting the trial court from...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Fenelon v. State
...not to intimate to the jury the court's opinion as to the weight, character, or credibility of any evidence adduced. Whitfield v. State, 452 So.2d 548, 549 (Fla.1984). In reconsidering the flight instruction, we can think of no valid policy reason why a trial judge should be permitted to co......
-
Dunn v. State
...should not draw inferences naturally arising from implicative facts nor suggest such inferences to the jury. See, e.g., Whitfield v. State, 452 So.2d 548 (Fla.1984), holding it reversible error for the trial court to instruct the jury that an inference of consciousness of guilt could be inf......
-
Walker v. State
...for such instruction was an impermissible comment on the evidence. In addition, Walker notes that this Court in Whitfield v. State, 452 So.2d 548, 549 (Fla.1984), held that a trial court could no longer instruct the jury that it could consider a defendant's refusal to submit to fingerprinti......
-
Jackson v. State
...that the trial court should not have instructed the jury to infer consciousness of guilt from flight. As we said in Whitfield v. State, 452 So.2d 548, 549 (Fla.1984), an instruction of flight is permissible only "where there is significantly more evidence against the defendant than flight s......