Opinion
Case No. 2D18-4590
03-17-2021
Derek Lemar EDWARDS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Robert P. Harris and Brittney A. Davis of Robert Harris Law Firm, Fort Myers, for Appellant. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Helene S. Parnes, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
Robert P. Harris and Brittney A. Davis of Robert Harris Law Firm, Fort Myers, for Appellant.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Helene S. Parnes, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
KHOUZAM, Chief Judge.
Derick Lemar Edwards appeals his convictions and sentences for driving while license suspended, fleeing or attempting to elude a law enforcement officer with wanton disregard, possession of heroin, possession of a controlled substance, and resisting or obstructing an officer without violence. We reverse and remand for a new trial because unnecessary and unduly prejudicial collateral crime evidence was admitted at trial. We do not address Edwards’ remaining two issues, as our reversal renders them moot.
At trial, the State introduced evidence that Edwards or his passenger had fired gunshots at law enforcement officers. Testimony established that, on December 26, 2017, around midnight, three on-duty officers were parked at an intersection when they heard gunfire. As one officer explained, "[Y]ou could hear projectiles zooming past our car, like whistling by. ... I looked at my partner and I said, ‘Those are gunshots,’ and I took off in the direction of where they were coming from." The officers immediately encountered a vehicle pulling out onto the empty road and attempted to stop it. The vehicle maneuvered around a police vehicle blocking the road, and a highspeed chase ensued.
The officers called for backup over the police radio, and several more officers assisted in the chase. One officer testified that he responded when he heard over the radio that "they were being shot at." Portions of the radio transmission were played for the jury, including statements that "they were shooting in our direction" and "[t]he car was shooting towards us and you heard the bullets hitting around us." After the vehicle crashed into a canal, the occupants were ultimately apprehended, and the driver was identified as Edwards.
The State also introduced photos of a bullet hole found in a nearby middle school's sign, as well as evidence that a firearm was discovered in the vehicle. Edwards argues that evidence of the shooting was unnecessary and prejudicial because he was not being tried for the shooting or any firearm offense. We agree.
It is true that "[e]vidence of a collateral offense may be admissible on the ground that it is inextricably intertwined with the charged offense and therefore relevant to prove that offense." Kates v. State, 41 So. 3d 1044, 1045 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010).
The test for admissibility of collateral crime evidence on this theory is whether the evidence of the collateral crime is necessary to (1) adequately describe the charged act, (2) provide an intelligent account of the crime charged, (3) establish the entire context out of which the charged crime arose, or (4) adequately describe the events leading up to the charged crime.
Id. at 1045-46. Here, because the shooting occurred immediately before and led to the chase, evidence of the shooting did provide context for the charged crimes and describe the events leading up to the acts at issue.
But "[i]f the purpose of admitting testimony regarding uncharged collateral crimes is to show a logical sequence of events leading up to an arrest, the need for the evidence is slight, and the likelihood of misuse is great." Id. at 1046. "Moreover, even if evidence of an uncharged crime is inextricably intertwined with the charged offense and is thus admissible to establish the entire context of the crime, unnecessary details must be excluded." Id.
Importantly, the reason the police stopped Edwards is irrelevant to the charge of fleeing or attempting to elude. In Ward v. State, 59 So. 3d 1220, 1223 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011), the Fourth District held that "[s]imply stated, the underlying reason for the stop itself—at least in this case—was patently irrelevant to the charge of fleeing or attempting to elude." The court explained:
We understand that in most cases in which a defendant is charged with fleeing and eluding, the defendant will simultaneously be charged with the crime that constituted the underlying events leading to the chase. In those situations, it is obviously relevant and necessary for the state to explain the events constituting both the underlying crime and the subsequen[t] chase. As to the instant case, however, for whatever reason Ward was not charged with the underlying crime, the shooting, and therefore its relevancy was severely limited, if indeed it was relevant at all.
Id. at 1223 n.4. Similarly here, the context and sequence of events were not material issues at trial because Edwards was not being tried for the shooting or any firearm offense.
The Fourth District's decision in Tillman v. State, 964 So. 2d 785 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007), is illustrative. There, the catalyst for law enforcement's interaction with the defendant was a be-on-the-lookout (BOLO) report involving an armed kidnapping, but the defendant was not charged with any crimes associated with the alleged kidnapping. Id. at 786-87. Instead, he was charged only with crimes that occurred during the police interaction resulting from the BOLO: aggravated assault on officers, aggravated fleeing or eluding, and resisting without violence. Id. at 787.
Under these circumstances, the Fourth District held that "an alleged sequence of events leading to an investigation and an arrest is not a material issue in this type of case." Id. at 788 (quoting Keen v. State, 775 So. 2d 263, 274 (Fla. 2000) ). The court explained that even if it was necessary to show that the officers were engaged in a legal duty at the time they approached the appellant, "the mere statement that they were investigating a BOLO report would have sufficed to provide them with the authority." Id. at 789 ; see also Ward, 59 So. 3d at 1223 ("The state could have reasonably elicited testimony which indicated that police needed to stop [appellant]'s vehicle because he was a person of interest in a recent incident. This type of limited statement would have provided the jury with adequate context for it to understand why the police were attempting to detain [appellant]." (citations omitted)).
Like in Tillman and Ward, a limited statement that the officers were investigating a recent incident and Edwards was a person of interest would have provided sufficient context for the charged crimes. Instead, the State went overboard presenting not only the officers’ testimony about the shooting but also the radio transmission, the photos of the bullet hole in the school sign, and the firearm discovered in the vehicle. Accordingly, we conclude that the court abused its discretion in admitting specific evidence of the shooting.
Next, we must consider whether the error was harmless. "[T]he erroneous admission of collateral crimes evidence is presumptively harmful." Ward, 59 So. 3d at 1224 (quoting McCall v. State, 941 So. 2d 1280, 1283 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006) ). "This is because ‘[e]vidence that suggests a defendant has committed other crimes or bad acts can have a powerful effect on the results at trial.’ " Id. (alteration in original) (quoting McCall, 941 So. 2d at 1283 ). Certainly, the erroneous admission of multiple pieces of evidence suggesting that Edwards attempted to shoot law enforcement officers was extremely prejudicial. We cannot conclude that the error was harmless, and therefore a new trial is warranted.
Reversed and remanded for a new trial.
LUCAS and LABRIT, JJ., Concur.