Wilkerson v. State, BM-314

• Decision Date: 19 August 1987
• Docket Number: No. BM-314,BM-314
• Citation: Wilkerson v. State, 510 So.2d 1253, 12 Fla. L. Weekly 2043 (Fla. App. 1987)
• Parties: 12 Fla. L. Weekly 2043 Raymond WILKERSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1253

510 So.2d 1253

12 Fla. L. Weekly 2043

Raymond WILKERSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. BM-314.

District Court of Appeal of Florida First District.

Aug. 19, 1987.

Michael E. Allen, Public Defender, Glenna Joyce Reeves, Asst. Public Defender, Tallahassee, for appellant.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., John M. Koenig, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

SHIVERS, Judge.

Wilkerson appeals from the jury's verdict finding him guilty on two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Although Wilkerson raises two issues in his appeal, we discuss only the second one, which concerns whether the trial court, in making repeated derogatory comments toward Wilkerson's attorney, deprived him of a fundamentally fair trial. Because we answer that question in the affirmative and find Wilkerson is entitled to a new trial, it is unnecessary for us to resolve the first point of error.

Wilkerson was charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. His charges stemmed from a confrontation he had with three young women on July 17, 1985. The women were spending an afternoon at the Starke Recreational Center when they observed four or five men in a truck drive past them. One of the women allegedly made an obscene gesture toward the truck which prompted the driver to stop. Wilkerson exited the truck, pulled out a knife, and approached the young woman. Wilkerson was later arrested, and a search revealed he had been carrying a small pocket knife.

Wilkerson was tried by a jury on three counts of assault with a deadly weapon. As Wilkerson's trial progressed, the trial court judge made a number of remarks directed toward Wilkerson's attorney. These remarks included: (1) openly telling Wilkerson's attorney during voir dire that his questions were immaterial and a waste of time; (2) telling Wilkerson's attorney in the presence of the jury to "sit down if that's all you've got to say other than that" after faulting his method of impeaching a witness; (3) after later attempting to impeach the same witness, instructing Wilkerson's attorney, again in the presence of the jury, to "come up here and you show it [the deposition] to me because I can't trust you down there"; (4) telling Wilkerson's attorney that one of the questions he proposed to put to a witness "hasn't got anything to do with any of the testimony, hasn't got anything to do with proper cross and doesn't have anything to do with impeachment"; (5) informing Wilkerson's attorney upon being denied a request to recall a witness for direct examination that "this is [the] law and not moot court." At several points in the trial, Wilkerson's attorney moved for a mistrial or, in the alternative, to have the judge recuse himself, but these requests were denied. Wilkerson was found guilty of two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

Although the trial court possesses wide discretion in governing the conduct of counsel at trial, see generally 75 Am.Jur.2d Trial § 118 (1974), that discretion is not limitless. Florida courts have recognized that there are occasions when there is no error in rebuking defense counsel in the presence of the jury; however, the better practice is to require the jury's retirement before doing so. See Jones v. State, 385 So.2d 132 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980). Here, the trial court's charges were made in the presence of the jury, and under the rationale expressed in several relevant decisions, this worked to deny Wilkerson a fair and impartial trial.

Florida appellate decisions are in agreement that a trial judge abuses his discretion when his rebukes so severely call into question an attorney's level of advocacy and sense of fairness that the attorney's client is unjustly prejudiced. Whenever this occurs, the judge effectively visits his attitudes on the defendant. In Jones v. State, supra, the Fourth District...