The state charged appellant with one count of sexual battery and one count of fraudulently using a credit card. The charges stemmed from an incident which took place on January 1, 2008, when appellant sexually battered a woman, took her credit card, and hours later used the credit card to purchase gasoline. Although we hold that there was no error in the denial of a motion to sever the two charges, we reverse because of the erroneous admission of a police detective’s opinion testimony relating to a video, which invaded the province of the jury to draw its own conclusion about whether appellant was the person depicted in the video.
We find no error in the trial court’s denial of the motion to sever the credit card incident from the sexual bat
A separate issue concerns the playing of a surveillance video from the gas station depicting a man purchasing gasoline with the victim’s credit card. Over objection, the state elicited testimony from a detective that, while he was unable to identify the person in the video when he originally saw it, he was later able to piece things together and identify the person in the video as appellant.
To argue for reversal, appellant relies on Ruffin v. State, 549 So.2d 250 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989). In that case, the state offered a videotape of a drug purchase by an undercover police officer. See id. at 251. Over objection, three police officers who were not present for the undercover transaction testified that, in their opinion, Ruf-fin was the man in the videotape. Id. The fifth district held that this opinion testimony invaded the province of the jury:
This was an invasion of the province of the jury. When factual determinations are within the realm of an ordinary juror’s knowledge and experience, such determinations and the conclusions to be drawn therefrom must be made by the jury. [The three officers] were not eyewitnesses to the crime, they did not have any special familiarity with Ruffin, and they were not qualified as any type of experts in identification.
Id. (footnote omitted) (citation omitted); see also Edwards v. State, 583 So.2d 740 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991) (reversing when officer who employed an informant to make controlled, videotaped buy from appellant, but who did not witness buy firsthand, testified “he recognized appellant as the person shown on the tape making the sale to” informant).
As in Ruffin, the testifying officer in this case was not an eyewitness to the use of the credit card at the gas station, he had no special familiarity with appellant, and he was not otherwise qualified as an expert in video identification. At first, the officer was not able to identify appellant on the video. The jurors should have been left to determine for themselves whether appellant was the person in the surveillance video.
The error in admitting the officer’s identification testimony was not harmless. “[E]rror in admitting improper testimony may be exacerbated where the testimony comes from a police officer.” Martinez v. State, 761 So.2d 1074, 1080 (Fla.2000) (citation omitted). There is the danger that jurors will defer to what they perceive to be an officer’s special training and access to background information not presented during trial. Id. Here, the appellant’s defense to the sexual battery was consent; the victim’s in-court version of
Reversed and remanded for a new trial.