367 So. 2d 656 - Black v. State

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently July 2018

12 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.

¶1Denis Dean, Special Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.

¶2Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and William M. Grodnick, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

¶3Before PEARSON, BARKDULL and HUBBART, JJ.

¶4 *657 HUBBART, Judge.

¶5This is a criminal prosecution which was consolidated for trial with a violation of probation proceeding in the Circuit Court for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida. After a jury trial in which the defendant was convicted of certain charged felonies, the trial court entered adjudications of guilt thereon, revoked the defendant's prior probation, and imposed a series of penitentiary sentences. The defendant appeals.

¶6The central contention made by the defendant for reversal of the convictions herein, and the only contention orally argued before the court, is that the prosecuting attorney indirectly commented in his final argument to the jury on the defendant's failure to testify at trial. In our view, the issue was not properly presented to the trial court and, accordingly, has not been preserved for appellate review. Although the defendant objected at trial to the challenged argument and moved for a mistrial, he did not object on the specific ground that he now urges on appeal, to wit: that the prosecutor's argument constituted an indirect comment on the defendant's failure to testify at trial. As such, the defendant has waived the issue for appellate review. Clark v. State, 363 So.2d 331 (Fla. 1978); State v. Jones, 204 So.2d 515 (Fla. 1967).

¶7We have considered the other contentions raised by the defendant in his brief and find them to be insufficient to upset this conviction. Accordingly, we affirm.

¶8Affirmed.