CARLTON WILLIS, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 1998-10-21
No. 97-2918
WARNER, J., and OWEN, WILLIAM C., Jr., Senior Judge, concur.
727 So. 2d 952 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (1998) Positive Treatment
Cited by 5 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

Carlton Willis appealed the revocation of his probation for carrying a concealed firearm, contending there was no evidence he committed aggravated assault and that revocation was improper regarding cost and community service conditions lacking payment schedules. The court affirmed the revocation based on aggravated assault and unpaid supervision costs, but found the revocation improper regarding costs and community service conditions that lacked time schedules.


Holding

The court affirmed revocation on the aggravated assault violation and the failure to pay monthly supervision costs, but found revocation improper on the conditions requiring payment of costs and community service performance because those conditions lacked time schedules, meaning Willis had until the end of his probationary term to comply with them.


Headnotes

[1] An 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, is admissib…

[2] A trial court is in the best position to weigh the credibility of witnesses when evidence is conflicting.

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Key Quotes

“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.”

Florida's hearsay exception for excited utterances, under which the woman's statement 'he has a gun' was admissible and constituted sufficient evidence of aggravated assault.

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Facts & Procedural History

Willis pled guilty to carrying a concealed firearm and was sentenced to nine months probation. At a subsequent revocation hearing, a woman who had dat…

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Opinion of the Court
KLEIN, Judge.

KLEIN, Judge.

Appellant pled guilty to carrying a concealed firearm and was sentenced to nine months probation. He now appeals the revocation of that probation, arguing that there was no evidence that he committed an aggravated assault. He also contends that since the trial court had not imposed a schedule for paying costs or completing community service, revocation was improper on those grounds as well.

The incident involving aggravated assault occurred in the presence of another man and a woman who had dated the appellant. Appellant had seen them in the parking lot of a theater and asked if they were dating. Later, when the other man took the woman home, they saw appellant coming toward their car, pointing something, and the woman said “Oh, my God, he has a gun.”

The man filed a police report the next day alleging that appellant had pointed a gun at them, but at the revocation hearing, he testified that appellant was “pointing like a gun or something,” and that his companion had said that he had a gun. The man testified that he did not actually see a gun. The woman acknowledged that she had written in a police statement that appellant had come at her with a gun, but at the hearing she testified that she did not see any gun.

We disagree with appellant’s assertion that there was no evidence that he had a gun. The woman’s statement to her companion at the time, introduced into evidence at the revocation hearing through her companion, was a classic example of an excited utterance, admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule under section 90.803(2), Florida Statutes (1997) (“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.”). Although the evidence was conflicting, the trial court was in the best position to weigh the credibility of the witnesses. Miller v. State, 661 So. 2d 353 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995).

The trial court also found that appellant violated three other conditions of his probation, the first requiring him to pay fifty dollars a month toward the cost of his supervision, the second requiring him to pay certain costs, and the third requiring him to perform fifty hours of community service. The court was correct as to the fifty dollars per month supervision costs; however, we find a problem with the other costs and the community service. That problem arises out of the fact that when appellant was arrested and incarcerated for violating his probation, his probationary term still had eighteen days to go. He correctly argues that, because there was no time schedule for payment of the costs or performance of the community service, he had until the end of his probationary term to comply with those conditions. Llumbet v. State, 698 So. 2d 381 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997)(where order requiring defendant to pay restitution does not specify a payment schedule or time limit, defendant has entire time of community control in which to pay).

Because we are confident from this record that the trial court would have revoked probation without the violations of the conditions requiring the payment of costs and performance of community service, Wilson v. State, 506 So. 2d 1170 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), we affirm the revocation, but only on the aggravated assault charge and the failure to pay the costs of supervision, which was scheduled monthly.

We caution trial judges to either set periodic schedules or time limits prior to the end of probationary periods for conditions which require affirmative acts of the defendant, such as payments or performance of community service. Without such scheduling, it is difficult to revoke for violation of those conditions, because the defendant has until the end of the period to perform them, Llumbet, yet the court loses jurisdiction over the defendant at the expiration of the period. McGraw v. State, 700 So. 2d 183, 184 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997). Affirmed as modified.

WARNER, J., and OWEN, WILLIAM C., Jr., Senior Judge, concur.

Other
KLEIN, Judge.

KLEIN, Judge.

Appellant has moved for rehearing arguing that our holding that there was sufficient evidence to revoke appellant’s probation conflicts with State v. Green, 667 So. 2d 756 (Fla.1995) and State v. Moore, 485 So. 2d 1279 (Fla.1986), in which the Florida Supreme Court held that a prior inconsistent statement standing alone is insufficient to prove guilt in a criminal prosecution.

We disagree with appellant for two reasons. First, the evidence which we found sufficient to support revocation of probation was not offered as a prior inconsistent statement (for purpose of impeachment) but rather was an excited utterance, which was admissible as substantive evidence. Williams v. State, 714 So. 2d 462 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997), rev. denied, 717 So. 2d 542 (Fla.1998)(excited utterance is sufficient evidence on which to base conviction). Second, the rationale of Moore and Green is that a prior inconsistent statement alone is insufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That is not the burden of proof on the state in a probation revocation proceeding. Anderson v. State, 711 So. 2d 106 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998)(to support revocation of probation, state has burden of proving the violation by the greater weight of the evidence).

We therefore deny appellant’s motion for rehearing.

WARNER, J., and OWEN, WILLIAM C., Jr., Senior Judge, concur.


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Citator

Cited By

  • Margarito Montano v. State, 846 So. 2d 677 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003)
    …re was time to contrive or misrepresent; and (3) the statement must have been made while the person was under the stress of excitement caused by the startling event.” Id. at 873; see Henyard v. State, 689 So. 2d 239, 251 (Fla.1996); Willis v. State, 727 So. 2d 952, 953 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998). The issue of whether the declarant is “under the stress of excitement” at the time of the excited utterance is a preliminary fact question for the trial court to decide. See Stoll, 762 So. 2d at 873; Cotton v. State, 763 S…
  • S.R. v. State, 925 So. 2d 474 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006)
    …FARMER, J. Reversed. The finding of a violation of probation for failing to complete required community service was error in the absence of a formally imposed deadline in the disposition order for doing so. Willis v. State, 727 So. 2d 952, 953 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998) (citing Llumbet v. State, 698 So. 2d 381 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997)); Tracy v. State, 673 So. 2d 544, 544 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996) (citing Young v. State, 566 So. 2d 69 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990)). The State concedes that the fifty hours of com…
  • Wilcox v. State, 770 So. 2d 733 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)
    …Fla. 4th DCA 1998). Here, the testimony that the victim yelled to her daughter to call the police, “because Ernest picked up a knife,” was admissible under section 90.803(2) as an excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule. See Willis v. State, 727 So. 2d 952 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998). That competent evidence, in combination with Deputy Jenkins’ hearsay testimony (concerning Louella’s out-of-court statement that appellant pointed the knife at her in a threatening manner), was sufficient to prove that appellant…

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