finding use of questions that elicit witness’s position as police officer when witness is identifying defendant’s voice or image may be reversible error even when identification itself is permissible
How later courts described this case
- finding use of questions that elicit witness’s position as police officer when witness is identifying defendant’s voice or image may be reversible error even when identification itself is permissible
- reversing conviction for cumulative error, taking into account objected-to and unobjected-to errors, and describing standard as to whether combined effect of errors undermined fairness of trial such that state could not prove that there was "no reasonable possibility that the error contributed to ... conviction" (quotation omitted)
- explaining that a preserved challenge to the prosecutor’s improper closing arguments is reviewed for harmless error
- condemning comments in which prosecutor ridiculed defense counsel’s argument, telling the jury “only in a world populated by defense attorneys would that [argument] be true”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Overruled on other grounds by Rico Johnson v. State of Florida, 252 So. 3d 1114 (2018)
177 So. 3d 1219, 1233 (Fla. 2015) (“Therefore, the prosecutor’s insinuations arguably left the jury with the damaging impression that Evans stalked Beth and was so obsessed with her that he hired a private investigator to acquire information about her new boyfriend. This line of questioning, which was not supported by any evidence, was improper.”), overruled on other grounds by Johnson v. State, 252 So. 3d 1114, 1115
The opinion
CANADY, J.,
dissenting.
I agree with Justice Lewis’s dissent with one exception. On the issue regarding the prosecutor’s questions to Evans about the hiring of a private investigator, I would conclude that any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.