352 SO2D 168 - Burgess v. State

How this case has been cited

Cited by 125 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2004 · most notably Chandler v. Florida (1981), 461 So. 2d 67 - Davis v. State (1984)

120 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

PER CURIAM.

¶1Affirmed.

DOWNEY and LETTS, JJ., concur.ANSTEAD, J., concurs specially.ANSTEAD, Judge,

¶2concurring specially:

¶3The trial court admitted into evidence, over the defendant’s objection, detailed statements by the investigating police officers as to what was told them by the victim of an attempted sexual battery. The court stated that the testimony was being admitted under the res gestae exception to the hearsay rule. The applicable law is set out in Ellis v. State, 25 Fla. 702, 6 So. 768, 770 (1889):

The female outraged should seek the first opportunity to complain, and the fact that she does complain goes to the jury as evidence, but her detailed statement of the circumstances under which she was outraged cannot be given in evidence on the trial of the case by the party to whom she made the statement. Such testimony [would be] hearsay .

¶4Under this rule the police officers’ testimony would not be admissible. However, the victim herself testified as to the same facts set out in the officers’ testimony and there was overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt. Because of these circumstances I believe the admission of the officers’ testimony constituted harmless error. See Irvin v. State, 66 So.2d 288 (Fla.1953).