ANTONIO PALMER, 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.
Antonio Palmer was convicted of attempted murder in the second degree in a shooting case. The Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed his conviction due to the trial court's erroneous exclusion of evidence regarding the victim's reputation for truthfulness, which was critical to the defense's credibility challenge.
The trial court erred in excluding evidence of the victim's reputation for truth and veracity, and this error was not harmless because the victim's credibility was the heart of the defense. Palmer's sentencing argument has already been rejected by the Florida Supreme Court and is affirmed.
[1] A defendant may present evidence of a victim's reputation for truth and veracity in the community when the victim's credibility is central to the defense.
[2] Testimony regarding a witness's knowledge of a victim's reputation for truth or dishonesty in the community, even if brief, can be sufficient to lay a predicate for admit…
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“As the victim's testimony was the only evidence linking Palmer to the shooting, his credibility was the heart of the defense, and it was error to leave out his reputation for truth and veracity.”
Establishes that excluding victim reputation evidence was reversible error because the victim was the sole evidence connecting Palmer to the crime
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligencePalmer was charged with attempted murder in the first degree and found guilty of the lesser included offense of attempted murder in the second degree …
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 Harmless Error Analysis cases and more on FLexlaw
POLEN, J.
Appellant Antonio Palmer was charged with attempted murder in the first degree and found guilty of the lesser included offense of attempted murder in the second degree arising ft-om a shooting involving Palmer and a co-defendant, Gerald Muir. Palmer argues that the trial court erred in refusing to allow defense counsel to put before the jury the reputation of the victim, Mr. Ward, for truth and veracity in the community. We agree.
Chris Jones was called to testify as a defense witness. Defense counsel conducted a voir dire examination of Jones outside the presence of the jury. The following exchange occurred:
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Do you know what Mr. Ward’s reputation is in your neighborhood for truth or dishonesty or honesty?
JONES: It’s pretty bad.
This was sufficient to allow the jury to consider the victim’s reputation for truth and veracity in the community. Though other questions were raised by the State following this exchange, attempting to undermine the predicate for Mr. Jones’s opinion, those questions went to the weight of the testimony and would have been properly raised on cross-examination by the State.
As the victim’s testimony was the only evidence linking Palmer to the shooting, his credibility was the heart of the defense, and it was error to leave out his reputation for truth and veracity. We cannot find this error harmless because other witnesses specifically denied seeing Palmer at the scene of the shooting. The whole defense was based on the victim s credibility or lack thereof. We, therefore, reverse on this issue, and remand for a new trial.
Additionally, Palmer argues that his sentence should be reversed because although he was convicted of the lesser included offense of attempted murder in the second degree, he was still sentenced to the same sentence were he to have been found guilty as charged. But Palmer’s argument has already been addressed and rejected by the Florida Supreme Court. See Sanders v. State, 944 So. 2d 203 (Fla.2006). Thus, we affirm on this issue should Palmer be convicted of the same offense on retrial.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded.
GROSS and MAY, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Johnson v. State, 108 So. 3d 707 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013)…ires. We cannot disturb this finding under our standard of review. Appellant places primary reliance on two decisions from our sister court, with which he urges we are in conflict: Muir v. State, 987 So. 2d 230 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008); Palmer v. State, 978 So. 2d 282 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008). These decisions are at the center of Appellant’s request for a written opinion and asserted belief that further review might be available. We initially dismissed the specter of conflict because the relatively brief opinions do n…
-
Muir v. State, 987 So. 2d 230 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008)…ng to bully, another guy, he was dishonest and saying things about the guy. He was like dishonest because it was like people say he took money for the case and he tried to like lie on the dude or something. As this court stated in Palmer v. State, 978 So. 2d 282 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008), concerning appellant’s codefendant Palmer: This was sufficient to allow the jury to consider the victim’s reputation for truth and veracity in the community. Though other questions were raised by the State following this exchan…
Authorities Cited
- Sanders v. State, 944 So. 2d 203 (Fla. 2006)