{"id":782,"date":"2018-12-27T11:46:47","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T16:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearwatersexcrimeslawyer.com\/?p=339"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:10:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:10:42","slug":"florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Court Rules Admission of Hearsay Necessitated Reversal of Conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the protections afforded criminal defendants is the prohibiting of hearsay testimony as evidence of a crime. While there are certain exceptions to the rule against hearsay, they are strictly construed. As shown in a recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.3dca.flcourts.org\/Opinions\/3D15-2339.op2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">case<\/a>\u00a0ruled on by a District Court of Appeal of Florida, if a trial court erroneously allows the admission of hearsay evidence, it can result in a conviction being overturned. If you live in Clearwater and are charged with a crime, it is in your best interest to meet with an experienced Clearwater criminal defense attorney to help you retain your rights.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Reported Facts<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Allegedly, the defendant went to the apartment of his friend\u2019s neighbors to question them about reportedly harassing his friend. It is undisputed that the neighbors\u2019 door was knocked down, the defendant entered the apartment, a fight ensued, and a gun was discharged. The exact details of what happened after the defendant arrived at the neighbor\u2019s apartment were disputed, however. Following the incident, the defendant was charged with multiple crimes.<\/p>\n<p>At the trial, the defendant testified that he asked the neighbors to leave his friend alone, accidentally knocked the door down, and was pulled into the apartment, and one of the neighbors\u2019 had a gun that discharged. In contrast, the neighbors testified that the defendant kicked in the door, pointed a gun at them, assaulted them, and discharged the gun. The defendant\u2019s friend did not testify at the trial. The state admitted out-of-court statements made by the friend into evidence at the trial, despite objections by the defendant\u2019s counsel that they constituted hearsay. The statements indicated the friend was going to send someone to \u201cput a cap in\u201d the neighbors and beat them up. The state argued these statements were evidence the defendant intended to assault the neighbors when he went to their apartment. The defendant was ultimately convicted of burglary of an occupied dwelling and assault, but the jury specifically found that the defendant did not use or possess a firearm or commit a battery. The defendant appealed, arguing the evidence regarding his friend\u2019s out-of-court statements constituted inadmissible hearsay.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/#more-782\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the protections afforded criminal defendants is the prohibiting of hearsay testimony as evidence of a crime. While there are certain exceptions to the rule against hearsay, they are strictly construed. As shown in a recent case\u00a0ruled on by a District Court of Appeal of Florida, if a trial court erroneously allows the admission [&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-782","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>Evidence Rule: Hearsay Evidence Problems<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Accused of criminal charges? See how this ruling on admission hearsay necessitated reversal your defense in Pinellas County. See how to fight back?\" \/>\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\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Evidence Rule: Hearsay Evidence Problems\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Accused of criminal charges? See how this ruling on admission hearsay necessitated reversal your defense in Pinellas County. See how to fight back?\" \/>\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=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Evidence Rule: Hearsay Evidence Problems","description":"Accused of criminal charges? See how this ruling on admission hearsay necessitated reversal your defense in Pinellas County. See how to fight back?","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\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Evidence Rule: Hearsay Evidence Problems","twitter_description":"Accused of criminal charges? See how this ruling on admission hearsay necessitated reversal your defense in Pinellas County. See how to fight back?","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hanlon Law, PA","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"headline":"Florida Court Rules Admission of Hearsay Necessitated Reversal of Conviction","datePublished":"2018-12-27T16:46:47+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:10:42+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/"},"wordCount":729,"articleSection":["Sex Crimes"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/","name":"Evidence Rule: Hearsay Evidence Problems","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-12-27T16:46:47+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:10:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"description":"Accused of criminal charges? See how this ruling on admission hearsay necessitated reversal your defense in Pinellas County. See how to fight back?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-rules-admission-of-hearsay-necessitated-reversal-of-conviction\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Florida Court Rules Admission of Hearsay Necessitated Reversal of Conviction"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/","name":"Clearwater Criminal Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Florida Defense Lawyer \u2014 Hanlon Law","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939","name":"Hanlon Law, PA","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Hanlon Law, PA"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1390,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/1390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}