Hepburn v. State

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed September 17, 2014. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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No. 3D12-2815 Lower Tribunal No. 93-19103, 11-28881 ________________

Craig Hepburn, Appellant,

vs.

The State of Florida, Appellee.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Migna Sanchez- Llorens, Judge.

Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Marti Rothenberg, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Shayne R. Burnham, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before WELLS, EMAS and FERNANDEZ, JJ.

WELLS, Judge. Craig Hepburn appeals from a final judgment of civil commitment as a

sexually violent predator pursuant to the Jimmy Ryce Act. See §§ 394.910-

394.932, Fla. Stat. (2012). While we agree that the State’s attempt to illustrate the

meaning of the term “menace” by making an analogy to an escaped zoo lion was

improper, we affirm first because the error was not properly preserved for review

and did not rise to the level of fundamental error and second because on the record

before us the error was harmless.1

Affirmed.

1 We note that this analogy (made by the same trial attorney) has been urged as error in two separate cases which have come before this court within a span of only one week. While those errors to date have not been properly preserved nor proved legally sufficient to support reversal, we need say no more than verbum sapienti satis est.