CURTIS HAROLD KNARICH, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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.
Curtis Harold Knarich was convicted of lewd and lascivious contact with a child under sixteen. The appellate court affirmed his conviction but reversed his sentence, finding the trial court improperly scored prior military convictions in calculating sentencing guidelines.
The court affirmed the conviction, finding any error in the detective's opinion testimony harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The court reversed the sentence, holding that the trial court failed to properly compare the elements of the military convictions to comparable Florida offenses before scoring them as prior offenses in the sentencing guidelines.
[1] An investigating officer should not give an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused.
[2] An improper opinion as to guilt or innocence by a witness is subject to the harmless error test.
Previewing 2 of 5 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“a witness, especially a police officer, should not give an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused”
Establishes the rule against witness opinions on guilt, though harmless error analysis applies when violated
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceKnarich was convicted of lewd and lascivious contact with a child under sixteen years old in violation of Florida Statutes § 800.04(1). During the inv…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Uniform Code Of Military Justice cases and more on FLexlaw
DAVIS, Judge.
Curtis Harold Knarich appeals his conviction and sentence for lewd and lascivious contact with a child under the age of sixteen years, in violation of subsection 800.04(1), Florida Statutes (1997). We affirm Knarich’s conviction, but reverse his sentence and remand for resentencing.
Although Knarich raises several issues concerning his conviction, we find only one issue merits discussion. Knarich argues that the prosecutor impermissively elicited an opinion from the investigating officer as to his guilt. During direct examination of the investigating detective, the following exchange took place:
[Prosecutor]: After, shortly after that did you kind of confront him with whether you thought he had massaged the boys for some type of sexual stimulation or gratification?
[Detective]: Yes, I again told him through all the experience I had working with people who have a sexual interest in children, I found it hard to believe that he was massaging the buttocks of the child and not getting sexually aroused or not getting gratification from it and he just grinned at me. He grinned and said I can’t admit to that while this investigation is going on.
In contrast to Knarich’s contention, the State argues that this exchange was proper. That is, the officer merely explained what he said to Knarich to elicit Knarich’s smile and comment. We find that we need not resolve this dispute.
We acknowledge that a witness, especially a police officer, should not give an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused. See Martinez v. State, 761 So. 2d 1074, 1077 (Fla.2000).. However, if a witness does give an improper opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, such an error is subject to the harmless error .test. See id. Here, the record conclusively demonstrates that there is no reasonable probability that the alleged error contributed to the conviction. See State v. DiGuilio, 491 So. 2d 1129, 1138 (Fla.1986). In spite of the detective’s arguably unpermissive opinion as to Kna-rich’s guilt, we find any potential error harmless. See id.
Knarich also challenges his sentence, arguing that the trial court improperly scored prior convictions in the guidelines calculations. We agree. To score a prior conviction from a foreign jurisdiction as a prior offense, the trial court should determine that the .elements of the foreign offense are parallel to a comparable offense defined by Florida law. See Dautel v. State, 658 So. 2d 88, 91 (Fla.1995). The record herein shows that the State did not present, and the trial court did not consider, any documentation as to the elements of Knarich’s prior offenses. Rather, the trial court only referred to a general court-martial order, which contained the factual allegations of each prior offense. The trial court should have reviewed the language within the applicable article of th.e Uniform Code of Military Justice, and then compared this language to the specific elements of a comparable Florida offense. Accordingly, we vacate Knarich’s sentence and remand this case to the trial court for resentencing. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for resentencing.
CAMPBELL, A.C.J., and STRINGER, J., Concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Knarich v. State, 866 So. 2d 165 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004)…y years in prison, with the last fifteen years to be suspended and Knarieh to be placed on fifteen years of sex offender probation. Knarieh appealed, and this court affirmed his judgment but reversed and remanded for resentencing. Knarich v. State, 766 So. 2d 404 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000). This court stated that to properly score Knarich’s prior record on remand, the trial court must compare the elements of Kna-rich’s prior military convictions with the elements of comparable Florida offenses. Id. at 405. The tria…
-
Knarich v. State, 932 So. 2d 257 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005)…e to be suspended, and Knarich was to be placed on fifteen years of sex offender probation. This court reversed the original sentence after concluding that the trial court had improperly scored Knarieh’s prior military convictions. Knarich v. State, 766 So. 2d 404 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000) (Knarich I). We held that the trial court had erred by scoring Knarich’s military convictions as prior record without comparing the elements of the military offenses to the specific elements of a comparable offense. Id. at 405. O…
Authorities Cited
- State v. DiGUILIO, 491 So. 2d 1129 (Fla. 1986)
- Martinez v. State, 761 So. 2d 1074 (Fla. 2000)
- Dautel v. State, 658 So. 2d 88 (Fla. 1995)