GARY MARCELLIS FLOWERS, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Florida appellate court reversed sexual battery and burglary convictions because collateral evidence of a separate crime was improperly admitted to establish identity, as the crimes lacked sufficient distinctive similarities.
Evidence of a separate offense is inadmissible to prove identity in a prosecution for another offense unless the circumstances surrounding both offenses share distinctive similarities beyond mere general resemblance.
[1] Evidence of a separate offense is admissible to prove identity in a prosecution for another offense only when the circumstances of both offenses exhibit distinctive simil…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceFlowers was convicted of sexual battery and burglary. The state introduced evidence of a separate burglary and sexual battery to establish identity, b…
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PER CURIAM.
Flowers’s appeal from his convictions of sexual battery and burglary attacks the lower court’s denial of his motion in limine seeking to prohibit the state from introducing certain collateral evidence for the purpose of establishing identity. We agree that such evidence should not have been admitted and reverse.
Here, as in Davis v. State, 376 So. 2d 1198 (Fla. 2d DCA 1979) there are not enough similarities between the two crimes to justify admission of the collateral evidence even though both crimes involve burglary and sexual battery. The only similarity between the two cases is that the apartments which were entered were located on the second floor of the apartment building, both had balconies next to the livingrooms into which entry could be accomplished through a sliding glass door. There the similarities end. In one case the victim was sexually assaulted, in the other she was not. Moreover, the incidents occurred approximately six weeks apart, in locations four-five miles apart. During one assault the attacker used profanity, but not during the other. One assailant took money from the victim, the other did not. In order for evidence of one offense to be admissible on the issue of identity in a prosecution for another offense, the circumstances surrounding the commission of the two offenses must be more than just similar. Duncan v. State, 291 So. 2d 241 (Fla. 2d DCA 1974).
Reversed and remanded for new trial.
ERVIN, LARRY G. SMITH and SHAW, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Ledlow v. State, 453 So. 2d 892 (Fla. 1st DCA 1984)….” Citations are confined to numerous decisions holding that certain similar crime testimony did not establish “uniqueness or particularity about the perpetrator” so as to point unmistakably to his identity in a later charge. E.g., Flowers v. State, 386 So. 2d 854 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980); Banks v. State, 298 So. 2d 543 (Fla. 1st DCA 1974). Such argument entirely omits consideration of the relevance of the questioned testimony on the central point in issue: the reasonability of any hypothesis that the victim’s in…
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McCULLOUGH v. State, 390 So. 2d 1225 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980)…icially know that color of the perpetrator alone bears no relationship to the incidence of this or any other crime. In finding reversible error in the admission of the other crime evidence we are guided by the principles stated in Flowers v. State, 386 So. 2d 854 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980), at page 855: In order for evidence of one offense to be admissible on the issue of identity in a prosecution for another offense, the circumstances surrounding the commission of the two offenses must be more than just similar.…
Authorities Cited
- Ira G. Duncan v. State, 291 So. 2d 241 (Fla. 2d DCA 1974)
- Davis v. State, 376 So. 2d 1198 (Fla. 2d DCA 1979)