Bell v. State

847 So. 2d 558, 2003 WL 21339448
District Court of Appeal of Florida·Decided June 11, 2003·No. 3D01-2607·Published·Cited by 10 cases

Opinion

847 So.2d 558 (2003)

Gary Paul BELL, Appellant,
v.
The STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 3D01-2607.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

June 11, 2003.

*560 Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Marti Rothenberg, Assistant Public Defender, for Appellant.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Michael J. Neimand and Melissa Vaughan Rubin, Assistant Attorneys General, for Appellee.

Before COPE, GODERICH and GREEN, JJ.

COPE, J.

Gary Paul Bell appeals his conviction and sentence for attempted kidnapping. We affirm.

Defendant-appellant Bell argues that the trial court should have excluded as hearsay the officer's testimony regarding the victim's account of the crime. The trial court admitted the testimony under the hearsay exception for excited utterances.

The victim testified that she was walking along the street during the daytime when the defendant twice drove up to her in his van and offered to give her a ride to her destination. She refused. When the victim next saw the defendant he was standing on the sidewalk with his van parked nearby. He grabbed her around the neck, held a gun to her head, and attempted to force her into the van. She broke free, ran into traffic, pounded on cars, and asked for help in getting away. The defendant, standing nearby, pointed his gun and threatened to shoot her.

The victim returned to her house and called the police. They found the victim to be hysterical and very fearful that the defendant may have followed her home. The victim was so upset that she could not speak. It took the officers fifteen or twenty minutes to calm the victim down to the point where she could give them a statement.

The hearsay exception for excited utterances applies to "[a] statement or excited utterance relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition." § 90.803(2), Fla. Stat. (2001).

The Florida Supreme Court has said:

The essential elements necessary to fall within the excited utterance exception are that (1) there must be an event startling enough to cause nervous excitement; (2) the statement must have been made before there was time to contrive or misrepresent; and (3) the statement must be made while the person is under the stress of excitement caused by the event.

The spontaneous statement exception and the excited utterance exception often overlap. However, as noted by Professor Ehrhardt:
The two exceptions differ mainly in the amount of time that may lapse between the event and the statement *561 describing the event. Under Section 90.803(2) it is not necessary that there be contemporaneity between the event and the statement. As long as the excited state of mind is present when the statement is made, the statement is admissible if it meets the other requirements of Section 90.803(2). This excited state may exist a substantial length of time after the event. Factors that the trial judge can consider in determining whether the necessary state of stress or excitement is present are the age of the declarant, the physical and mental condition of the declarant, the characteristics of the event and the subject matter of the statements. Whether the necessary state of mind is present is a preliminary fact for the court to determine pursuant to Section 90.104.

State v. Jano, 524 So.2d 660, 661 (citation omitted) (quoting Charles W. Ehrhardt, Florida Evidence § 803.2 (1984)) (emphasis added).

The defendant argues that the victim's statements in this case fail the excited utterance test because there was a time delay of approximately 50 minutes between the time of the incident and the time the victim became calm enough to speak. According to the defendant, this was sufficient time for the victim to contrive or misrepresent.

As the Jano decision indicates, however, points two and three of the test are interwoven. The theory of this hearsay exception is that so long as the declarant remains under the stress of excitement caused by the event, the declarant is unlikely to contrive or misrepresent.

In this case the investigating officer described the victim as hysterical when he first reached the house. She kept going to the window and looking outside to be sure that the defendant was not there. She was so upset she could not speak at all. The trial court permissibly concluded that the victim remained sufficiently under the stress of excitement of the event to make this an excited utterance for purposes of the hearsay exception. Henyard v. State, 689 So.2d 239, 251 (Fla.1996). Even if there were any error here, and we do not think there is any, we fail to see any harm as the victim herself testified and was subject to defense cross-examination on all of this.[1]

Turning to the defendant's other claims, the victim identified the defendant out of court and in court, and the evidence was legally sufficient to convict him. The ruling on the request for continuance was within the trial court's discretion. The defendant's complaints about his counsel after the State rested its case did not involve specific allegations of incompetence and did not call for an inquiry by the court. See Branch v. State, 685 So.2d 1250, 1252 (Fla.1996); Davila v. State, 829 So.2d 995 (Fla. 3d DCA 2002). There is no merit to the defendant's argument that *562 corpus delicti was insufficiently proved. See Schwab v. State, 636 So.2d 3, 6 (Fla. 1994).

The defendant correctly argues that there were errors in the jury instructions in this case, although those errors were not called to the attention of the trial court. The errors were, however, harmless under the circumstances of this case, and did not amount to fundamental error. See Reed v. State, 837 So.2d 366, 369-70 (Fla.2002).

The defendant in this case was charged with attempted kidnapping. The kidnapping statute provides, in relevant part:

787.01 Kidnapping; kidnapping of child under age 13, aggravating circumstances.—
(1)(a) The term "kidnapping" means forcibly, secretly, or by threat confining, abducting, or imprisoning another person against her or his will and without lawful authority, with intent to:
....
2. Commit or facilitate commission of any felony.
3. Inflict bodily harm upon or to terrorize the victim or another person.
§ 787.01(1)(a)2., 3., Fla. Stat. (1997).[2]

Subparagraphs 2 and 3 are alternatives for each other. The State need only prove the elements of subparagraph 2, or subparagraph 3, in order to convict the defendant. Carter v. State, 762 So.2d 1024, 1027 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000).

With respect to subparagraph 2, the jury instruction stated, "Gary Bell acted with the intent to commit or facilitate the commission of an assault and or battery and or attempted kidnapping." The defendant is correct in saying that this instruction is erroneous.

Under subparagraph 2, the State must establish that the defendant acted with intent to commit a felony. In this case, the court erred by including assault and battery in the jury instruction. That is so because assault and battery are misdemeanors, not felonies. See §§ 784.011, 784.03, Fla. Stat. (1997).

The defendant is also correct in saying that the offense of attempted kidnapping should not have been listed.

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Bell v. State, 847 So. 2d 558, 2003 WL 21339448 (Fla. Ct. App. 2003).

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