02-3084 JOHNSON V. STATE

SUPREME COURT CASES

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State: Florida

Court: Florida Third District Court

Docket No: 02-3084 JOHNSON V. STATE

Case Date: 11/19/2003

Preview:NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DISPOSED OF. IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA THIRD DISTRICT JULY TERM, A.D. 2003 CHARLES LOUIS JOHNSON, Appellant, vs. THE STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee. ** ** ** ** ** CASE NO. 3D02-3084 LOWER TRIBUNAL NO.00-39467

Opinion filed November 19, 2003. An appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Florida, Daryl Trawick, Judge. Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant. Charles J. Ingrassia, (Ft. appellee. Crist, Jr., Lauderdale), and Robert Kalter,

Attorney General, and Frank J. Assistant Attorney General, for

Before COPE, LEVY, and WELLS, JJ. WELLS, Judge. Charles Louis Johnson appeals his convictions for armed

burglary with an assault, sexual battery, and attempted sexual battery. Johnson maintains that the prosecutor's comments during

closing argument improperly bolstered the testimony of testifying officers, and that the jury instruction on burglary was incorrect as given, mandating reversal. We reject both claims and affirm the order under review. On November 15, 2000, an assailant entered the victim's home through an unlocked window. Taking a knife from the kitchen, the

assailant entered the victim's bedroom and attempted to rape her. The victim struggled with her assailant, biting him on the finger and breaking the knife. The attack lasted about 10 to 20 minutes

before the assailant ran away. The police subsequently found Johnson's fingerprints on a window which appeared to be the point of entry. His DNA (as well

as the victim's blood) was found on a shirt left by the assailant in the victim's bedroom. Johnson was arrested and questioned by

two detectives following waiver of his rights. Johnson initially denied any involvement, claiming that he was at home with his father on the evening in question, that he had never been inside the victim's home, and that he had no idea how his fingerprints got on the window of the victim's home. He

thereafter provided several even more incriminating versions of what had occurred. In his second version, he claimed that he went

to the victim's home with a friend named Jonathan and opened the window, but ran away after some dogs started barking. According to Johnson, only Jonathan went into the victim's home. Next, he admitted to entering the victim's home through the 2

window (this time with someone named Keith), to taking a knife from the kitchen, to removing the victim's bed covers, and to struggling with the victim over the knife. In a written statement to this

effect, Johnson claimed that after the struggle, he fled the house, leaving Keith alone with the victim. While not admitting to

sexually assaulting the victim in this statement, he admitted to one of the officers that after struggling with the victim, he might have engaged in some sexual activity with the victim. One of Johnson's defenses at trial was that his second statement to the police that he had only opened the window for his friend but never entered the home was the only true account of the events and that the police had coerced him into making the later, more incriminating statements. Defense counsel cross-examined the

detectives who took Johnson's statements as to their interrogation methods and expressly asked whether "this child was really just telling you what you are telling him"? During closing arguments,

defense counsel challenged the detectives' credibility, claiming that they had coerced Johnson's incriminating statements "work[ing] him over psychologically," putting words in his mouth. In

response, the prosecutor argued that the officers had no reason to lie about the circumstances surrounding the making of Johnson's statements in part because they contained so many exculpatory statements, denials and sympathetic excuses for Johnson's behavior, that logically they could not have been planted by the officers in Johnson's mouth: 3

Finally, you have [the defendant's] statements. Now, does [defense counsel] explain away the statements? Well, on the one hand, he is telling you that these detectives badgered and psychologically wore down the defendant. All right. Well, all right. Let's say hypothetically that was true. Wouldn't the stories be better if they are putting words in his mouth? Wouldn't the words be much better like why would they put in their excuse number one, excuse number two, a guy name Jonathan [sic]. "I didn't go in. Have sympathy for me because my mom died. Have sympathy, I didn't mean to do it. I'm sorry for what I did to that lady." Why did they put that in there. If these two officers, one of whom is retired, living in retirement land as we speak, who was not being made to testify here, not on the job anymore, has nothing to prove to anybody, why are they going to come in here, perjure themselves under oath, after she supposedly badgered this defendant, put it in their report, these stories where he told them where he minimizes what he did, where he makes excuses for what he did, where he apologizes for what he did, does that sound like the words of a detective or does that sound like the words of a 15 year old who went into a house, beat up a woman, tried to rape her and now he is confronted with the evidence against him and he is trying to make excuses for himself? "Well, yeah, you got me on the fingerprints, but I didn't really go in the house. I just took down the screen. It was Jonathan that went in. "Well, you got me on the shirt. You have

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