Ricardo RICARDO, Appellant,
v.
The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
*1297 Bеnnett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Bruce A. Rosenthal, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Henry R. Barksdale and Debоra Turner, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and NESBITT and JORGENSON, JJ.
JORGENSON, Judge.
Ricardo appeals from the final judgment of conviction for carrying a concealed firearm and the sentence entered thereon. For the reasons which follow, we affirm the conviction but reverse the sentence and remand for resentencing.
Ricardo first argues that his motion for mistrial shоuld have been granted at the commencement of the case because the prosecutor asserted in opening statement facts which Ricardo contends could not have been brought before the jury. In his opening statement, the prosecutor remarked:
[T]he evidence and the testimony in this case will show that the lounge is located at 442 Southwest 8th Street.
The State will prove that the defendant was in that lounge, that he was waving a gun and when Officer Morales arrived he asked the defendant to put his hands on the counter, that he frisked the defendant and he found а revolver in the defendant's waistband which was concealed by a leisure-type outfit, a beige leisure-type outfit, the same outfit the defendant is wearing today.
* * * * * *
The evidence will show that he recieved [sic] that call and that thеre are two doors in this lounge, the entrance and the exit, that Officer Reyes came in, that he blocked the exit, that Morales came in, that he had this description of the individual, a beige leisure suit, that the individual in the report, that the individual had been waving a gun around.
Defense counsel immediately objected to these threshold remarks on the stated basis that "[t]he report will not be in evidence." The court sustained the objection although it noted that "[t]here is a possibility the report may be in evidence." At the close of the opening statement for the state, defensе counsel moved for a mistrial on the basis that "the prosecutor has indicated to the jury hearsay evidencе that will not be in evidence in this case." Defense counsel continued, "[T]here are no witnesses listed that can tеstify to [the defendant's waving a gun around]. The only people that can testify to that would be the police officers and that would be hearsay on their part." The trial court denied the motion for mistrial.
We need go no further than Paul v. State,
As his second point, Ricardo argues thаt the trial court erred in departing upward from the sentencing guidelines by imposing the statutory maximum of five years. The trial сourt based the departure from the recommended sentence (any non-state prison sanction) upon twо grounds: one, the defendant's prior record (which *1298 included scored convictions and charges for which the defеndant had not been convicted) and, two, the court's disbelief of the defendant's trial testimony. Neither of these grounds is а proper basis for departing from the guidelines. See Hendrix v. State,
Judgment of conviction affirmed; sentence reversed; cause remanded with directions.
NESBITT, J., concurs.
SCHWARTZ, Chief Judge (dissenting in part).
As was demonstrated, totally without contradiction, by defense counsel in support of his motion for mistrial, there was no way that the state could have introduced evidence to support the highly prejudicial references in the prosecutor's opening statement. Thus, the motion should have been granted at that рoint, and there was no need to renew it at a later one.
Neither Paul v. State,
NOTES
Notes
[1] The rule invoked by the court would apply if, for example, a listed witness whom the prosecutor believed would testify in fact did not. Here, there was no possible witness who could testify to the prior offense.
