{"id":645,"date":"2018-02-20T10:10:54","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T15:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearwatersexcrimeslawyer.com\/?p=102"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:37:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:37:28","slug":"boogeyman-cant-get-new-trial-florida-prosecutors-inappropriate-name-calling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/boogeyman-cant-get-new-trial-florida-prosecutors-inappropriate-name-calling\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cBoogeyman\u201d Can\u2019t Get New Trial for Florida Prosecutor\u2019s Inappropriate Name Calling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are a number of procedural safeguards built into Florida laws that are designed to ensure that a person charged with a crime gets a fair trial without any preconceived notion of guilt. Those safeguards are particularly important in Florida\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.justia.com\/criminal\/offenses\/sex-crimes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sex crime<\/a> cases, which often carry a certain stigma based on the allegations involved. Sometimes when those rules are broken, however, it may still not be enough to justify a new trial. Just look at a recent case out of Florida\u2019s First District Court of Appeal.A defendant was charged with lewd and lascivious molestation of a person, stemming from an alleged incident involving a friend of his young daughter. The 11-year-old girl was staying at the defendant&#8217;s home one night when he allegedly entered the room in which she was sleeping and \u201crubbed the victim\u2019s genital region,\u201d according to the court. In an opening statement at trial, a state prosecutor referred to the defendant as a \u201cboogeyman.\u201d During trial, the prosecution also introduced evidence testimony about what the victim said happened. He was eventually convicted.<\/p>\n<p>The defendant later appealed the conviction, asserting that the trial judge made a number of errors. He argued, for instance, that the judge should have granted a new trial after the prosecutor called the defendant a \u201cboogeyman\u201d during the opening statement. The First District noted, however, that his lawyer objected to the characterization and that the trial judge sustained that objection. Although the prosecutor\u2019s comment was inappropriate, the appeals court said it wasn\u2019t enough to justify a new trial. The court pointed to a 2017 decision in a different case, in which it found that a prosecutor\u2019s reference to a defendant as a \u201ccreature that stalked the night\u201d did not warrant a new trial.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/boogeyman-cant-get-new-trial-florida-prosecutors-inappropriate-name-calling\/#more-645\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are a number of procedural safeguards built into Florida laws that are designed to ensure that a person charged with a crime gets a fair trial without any preconceived notion of guilt. Those safeguards are particularly important in Florida\u00a0sex crime cases, which often carry a certain stigma based on the allegations involved. Sometimes when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sex-crimes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Boogeyman Prosecutors Inappropriate Name Calling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dealing with criminal charges? See how this ruling on boogeyman cant get new may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Find out what this means?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/boogeyman-cant-get-new-trial-florida-prosecutors-inappropriate-name-calling\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Boogeyman Prosecutors Inappropriate Name Calling\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Dealing with criminal charges? See how this ruling on boogeyman cant get new may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Find out what this means?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hanlon Law, PA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Boogeyman Prosecutors Inappropriate Name Calling","description":"Dealing with criminal charges? See how this ruling on boogeyman cant get new may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Find out what this means?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/boogeyman-cant-get-new-trial-florida-prosecutors-inappropriate-name-calling\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Boogeyman Prosecutors Inappropriate Name Calling","twitter_description":"Dealing with criminal charges? See how this ruling on boogeyman cant get new may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Find out what this means?","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hanlon Law, PA","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/boogeyman-cant-get-new-trial-florida-prosecutors-inappropriate-name-calling\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/boogeyman-cant-get-new-trial-florida-prosecutors-inappropriate-name-calling\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"headline":"\u201cBoogeyman\u201d Can\u2019t Get New Trial for Florida Prosecutor\u2019s Inappropriate Name Calling","datePublished":"2018-02-20T15:10:54+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:37:28+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/boogeyman-cant-get-new-trial-florida-prosecutors-inappropriate-name-calling\/"},"wordCount":546,"articleSection":["Sex Crimes"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/boogeyman-cant-get-new-trial-florida-prosecutors-inappropriate-name-calling\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/boogeyman-cant-get-new-trial-florida-prosecutors-inappropriate-name-calling\/","name":"Boogeyman Prosecutors Inappropriate Name Calling","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-02-20T15:10:54+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:37:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"description":"Dealing with criminal charges? 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