Prove It on the Record: Florida Caselaw, Week of October 30, 2026

A resisting-without-violence trial in Miami-Dade. During jury selection, the prosecutor asked one prospective juror exactly one question: whether she remembered the usual color of police lights. She said red and blue. Then the State used its first peremptory strike on her. She was a Black woman.

The defense objected. The prosecutor said she’d questioned the officers’ credibility. The judge offered to have the court reporter read her answers back. The prosecutor declined, and gave a different reason: she had served on a criminal jury before. The defense pointed out that a non-Black man still on the panel had served on a jury too. The judge accepted the second reason.

This week the Third District reversed for a new trial.

I’m Rory Safir, and this is Reasonably Safir.

This one is the caselaw edition: the decisions Florida’s appellate courts handed down this week, case by case, for the lawyers who’d rather hear them than read them.

Here’s the thing about this week. Over and over, a court asked the same question: what does the record actually show? A prosecutor’s reason for a strike that applied just as well to a juror the State kept. A detective’s reason for believing a driver knew his license was suspended. Sentencing paperwork handed to a judge twice and never put into evidence. And photos of warning signs, date-stamped eight months after the injury. So that’s the theme. Prove it on the record. Let’s get into it.

The first case is the one I opened with. Mesamours against the State, Third District, out of Miami-Dade County, Judge Ariel Rodriguez below. This is a new opinion on rehearing. Judge Miller wrote it, Chief Judge Scales concurred in the result, and Associate Judge Koenig dissented.

The majority started from Melbourne, the Florida Supreme Court’s three-step procedure for a challenged peremptory strike. The objecting party makes a timely objection, shows the juror is in a protected group, and asks for a reason. The striking party gives a neutral reason. Then the judge decides whether that reason is genuine or a pretext, looking at all the circumstances.

The trial judge never ruled on the first reason, so the majority looked at the one the judge accepted, prior jury service. That reason applied equally to the juror the State didn’t strike, and the State never tried to distinguish them. Two more of the Slappy factors were there too: the reason had nothing to do with the facts of the case, and the State asked the juror a single question on an unrelated topic. Under the Third District’s Overstreet decision, that’s pretext. And the court refused to supply a reason the trial judge never ruled on, because otherwise, the court said, any prosecutor could get around the genuineness inquiry with an after-the-fact rationale.

Chief Judge Scales agreed that Overstreet controlled the reason the trial court actually accepted, and wrote that the first reason, the juror’s view of police credibility, could have been a valid one if the judge had ever ruled on it. Judge Koenig dissented, reading the record to show the trial court considered both reasons, and the first one was unique to this juror. The deep dive at the end is about exactly this: how to make a Melbourne objection that holds up on appeal. Hold that thought.

Quick pause, colleague to colleague. My firm handles DUI, criminal defense, and personal injury across Tampa Bay. If a case walks through your door that you’d rather send out, call or text 727-472-8096. I gladly accept referrals.

The next case is Warren against the State, Fourth District, out of Palm Beach County, Judge James Nutt below. Judge Klingensmith wrote it, with Chief Judge Gerber and Associate Judge Rebecca White. It’s about the knowledge element in driving while license suspended, and every DUI lawyer sees this charge.

Detectives watching a hotel parking lot saw a man get into a car. They ran the tag. The database showed he was the registered owner, and that his license had been suspended eight months earlier for failure to pay child support. They stopped him, confirmed the suspension, and arrested him for driving while his license was suspended. The search incident to arrest turned up a gun in his waistband. He moved to suppress, arguing the detective had no probable cause to believe he knew about the suspension.

Section 322.34 makes the difference. Driving while suspended without knowledge is a noncriminal moving violation under subsection one. Driving while suspended with knowledge is the crime under subsection two. So the court agreed that the bare fact of a suspension doesn’t supply knowledge, and the arrest needed probable cause on that element. But it found probable cause here. The detective testified that, in his experience, child support suspensions are preceded by notices from the child support office and the licensing agency, and eight months had passed. The court said neither the reason nor the time alone established knowledge, but together they did. And it said plainly that it wasn’t resting on a statutory presumption, or treating the mailing requirement in section 322.251 as proof that he got the notice. Affirmed.

Two things for your files. First, the line the court drew: a gap in proof of notice might matter at trial, even though it didn’t defeat probable cause for the arrest. So keep the two fights separate. Second, look at why the suspension happened. A child support suspension came with testimony about a specific notice process. A suspension where nobody can say what notice went out, and when, is a different case. Make the State’s witness explain the process, and make them explain it for your client’s kind of suspension.

The next case is a DUI. Tracz against the State, Second District, out of the Pinellas County Court, Judge Cathy McKyton below. I practice in Pinellas, so I read this one closely. Judge Labrit wrote it, Judge Villanti concurred, and Judge Atkinson concurred in part and dissented in part.

The defendant pleaded no contest to a third DUI on the morning of trial, after going over the plea form with her lawyer in the hallway, and received a ten-year license revocation. Later, in a sworn pro se motion, she raised a series of complaints about her lawyer: no meaningful advice about strategy and negotiations, no challenge to the out-of-state priors, a diversion offer that was never put to her, and video she thought helped her. The postconviction court boiled all of that down to three grounds and summarily denied them.

The Second District affirmed on two points the transcript refuted: she knew about the ten-year revocation, and she knew it was a third DUI. It also agreed that a lawyer isn’t ineffective just for communicating by phone and email instead of in person. But it reversed on the rest. The court said the motion fairly presented several recognizable claims that were insufficiently pleaded and not conclusively refuted, so under the Florida Supreme Court’s Spera decision and rule 3.850(h), she gets a chance to amend. The clearest one is the diversion offer. The decision to accept a plea offer belongs to the client, and rule 3.171 says defense counsel can’t conclude a plea agreement without the client’s full and complete consent.

The practice point is for the front end. Every offer goes to the client, in writing if you can, and the client’s answer goes in your file. And when a client is pleading to a multiple-offense DUI, put the number of the offense and the length of the revocation on the plea form itself. The plea form in this case didn’t specify either. The transcript saved it.

The next case is short, and it’s a repeat. Cleveland against the State, Second District, out of DeSoto County, Judge Don Hall below. Judge LaRose wrote it, with Judges Northcutt and Black. Last year the Second District reversed a habitual felony offender sentence because the State handed the judge the paperwork on the prior convictions but never put it into evidence. On remand, the trial court sentenced him as a habitual offender again, without the prior convictions in evidence, apparently relying on the State’s mistaken statement that they’d been admitted the first time. They hadn’t. The court’s word was “regrettably,” and it reversed for a third sentencing hearing. If the State hands up certified copies, make sure they’re actually moved into evidence, or point out that they weren’t.

And a follow-up on last episode’s deep dive. Two more six-person jury claims went down this week in the Second District, both raised for the first time on appeal. Matthews, out of Pasco County, where I practice. The defendant raised it for the first time in a supplemental brief, and the court said that while the U.S. Supreme Court may overrule Williams in Kian, Williams remains binding. And Johnson, out of Pinellas, where the court found no error at all, let alone fundamental error. Same lesson as last week. Object before jury selection, and get a ruling.

One more on the criminal side, and it’s a contrast with Sullivan from two episodes back. A different Williams: Williams against the State, First District, out of Levy County. Chief Judge Osterhaus wrote it. One thing up front: the finding that there was no discovery violation went unchallenged on appeal, so this isn’t a rule that disclosing a video’s existence is the same as producing it. A first-degree murder trial. The State had disclosed, more than a year before trial, that the driver-accomplice gave a second recorded interview, along with a summary flagging inconsistencies. But the video never made it to the prosecutor’s file. Mid-trial, a defense investigator got it from the sheriff’s office with a public records request. The trial court found no discovery violation, because the existence of the interview had been disclosed long before trial, and it gave the defense extra time to prepare. On appeal, the defendant argued the Richardson hearing was inadequate, but he didn’t challenge the finding that there was no violation in the first place. So the First District presumed that finding correct, and affirmed, because a full Richardson hearing isn’t required when there’s no violation. Remember Sullivan: prosecutors are charged with constructive knowledge of what the police have. If you think the State should have produced something its own sheriff was holding, challenge the no-violation finding itself.

Now the injury side, and it’s a strong week.

The first case is Collado Laguna against The Berry Farm, Third District, out of Miami-Dade County, Judge Javier Enriquez below. Judge Lobree wrote it. A woman took her three-year-old to a farm’s harvest festival, went down a slide in the playground, and broke her ankle. The farm got summary judgment under Florida’s agritourism statute. Section 570.88 protects an agritourism operator from liability for injuries from the inherent risks of the activity, but section 570.89 conditions that protection on posting the required warning signs.

The farm’s owner swore that compliant signs were posted at the entrance and by the playground. Look at the dates. The photos attached to his affidavit were stamped June fifteenth, twenty twenty-two. That’s eight months after the injury. He couldn’t say in deposition when the signs went up. The plaintiff testified there were no signs that day. The farm’s own Instagram account, six days before the festival, showed a single sign in the playground area. And an inspection in twenty twenty-five found that sign said parental supervision was required. The Third District reversed. Because the farm raised immunity as an affirmative defense, it had the burden at trial, so at summary judgment it had to show it would be entitled to a directed verdict if its evidence went uncontroverted. It didn’t.

Two practice points. If a defendant claims a statutory immunity that depends on posting a warning, the posting is their burden. Get the metadata on their photos, and pull their social media from the days before the incident. A business’s own posts are often the best photographs of what the property actually looked like.

The second case is Victoria Friend against Tamiami Airport Service Center, Third District, out of Miami-Dade, per curiam, from Judges Fernandez, Logue and Miller. The trial court denied leave to add punitive damages because the proffered conduct didn’t rise to the level of, in the court’s words, shocking, outrageous and immoral. Reversed. Section 768.72 asks for a reasonable showing that would provide a reasonable basis for recovery. And the Florida Supreme Court’s Perlmutter decision this year frames the question as whether a reasonable person could conclude, from the claimant’s evidence, that the defendant committed intentional misconduct or gross negligence as the statute defines them. The trial court didn’t have Perlmutter when it ruled, but it measured the proffer against a standard the statute doesn’t contain. Back for reconsideration.

Put that together with last episode’s two punitive damages cases. One was reversed because the motion didn’t attach the amended pleading twenty days before the hearing, and one because a licensing violation alone wasn’t enough. The procedure has to be right, the proffer has to hit the statutory definitions, and now you have Perlmutter to hold the trial court to the right standard. Cite it whenever leave is contested.

One more thing before I let you go, because ten minutes of holdings is a digest, and this show doesn’t do digests. Every Friday this segment takes the one doctrine the week actually turned on and gets into the deep end. This week it’s the Melbourne objection: how to challenge a peremptory strike so that the record holds up on appeal.

Start with where it comes from. In nineteen eighty-four, in State against Neil, the Florida Supreme Court held that striking jurors solely because of race violates the right to an impartial jury under the Florida Constitution. Two years later, in Batson against Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause forbids it too. And for the injury lawyers, in nineteen ninety-one, in Edmonson against Leesville Concrete, the Court held that race-based exclusion of jurors in a civil case violates the equal protection rights of the jurors who are struck. So this is your tool in a personal injury trial too.

Then the procedure. In Melbourne, in nineteen ninety-six, the Florida Supreme Court set the three steps I described a few minutes ago, and said the burden of persuasion never leaves the party objecting to the strike. Melbourne also moved the test from whether the reason is reasonable to whether it’s genuine. And the factors that show pretext come from State against Slappy, in nineteen eighty-eight. The Florida Supreme Court adopted a nonexclusive list of five: an alleged group bias not shown to be shared by the juror in question; failure to examine the juror, or only perfunctory examination; singling the juror out for special questioning designed to evoke a certain response; a reason unrelated to the facts of the case; and a reason equally applicable to jurors who weren’t challenged. Mesamours had three of the five.

Now Hayes against the State, from twenty twelve. The Florida Supreme Court reversed because the trial court never performed the third step, the genuineness inquiry, and because the burden of persuasion was put on the wrong side. Hayes says that at the third step, the trial court should ask the opponent of the strike why the reason isn’t genuine, and how, given all the circumstances, it’s a pretext. In other words, the judge is supposed to ask you, and you have to have an answer ready.

And the trap. In Joiner against the State, in nineteen ninety-three, defense counsel made a proper objection, lost, and then accepted the jury without reserving the objection before it was sworn. The Florida Supreme Court held that waived it. Accepting the jury led to a reasonable assumption that counsel had abandoned the objection. Joiner also said the remedy doesn’t have to be a new panel. The judge can seat the juror who was struck. And it rejected the idea that replacing the struck juror with another juror of the same race cures the problem, because, in the court’s words, jurors are not fungible.

So here’s the working playbook.

First, make all three parts of the objection out loud and on time: the objection, the juror’s protected group, and a request that the court ask for the reason. Do it when the strike is made.

Second, when the reason comes, answer it with the Slappy factors, by name. Say whether the juror was asked anything about the subject of the reason, whether the reason has anything to do with the facts of the case, and which jurors who weren’t struck share the same characteristic. In Mesamours, the comparison to the non-Black juror with the same prior jury service is what carried the appeal.

Third, ask the court for a ruling on genuineness, for every reason the other side gives. If a reason shifts, say so on the record. In Mesamours, the trial court never ruled on the first reason, and that’s exactly what split the panel.

Fourth, ask for a remedy. Under Joiner, the court can seat the struck juror. Ask for that, or for a new panel, and get a ruling.

Fifth, before the jury is sworn, renew the objection, or accept the panel only subject to it. Under Joiner, that one sentence is the difference between a preserved issue and a waived one.

And the limit, stated plainly. The trial judge’s genuineness call is reviewed for clear error, and appellate courts presume strikes are exercised in a nondiscriminatory way. Mesamours was a split panel, and Judge Koenig read the same record the other way. Hayes is also a reminder that it cuts both ways: the State can make a Melbourne objection to your strike, and you need a genuine, case-related reason ready when it does. A good record doesn’t guarantee a reversal. A bad one almost guarantees an affirmance.

If you want the set, Mesamours, Neil, Melbourne, Slappy, Hayes, Joiner and Edmonson, plus a one-page Melbourne objection script built on those five steps, email me and I’ll send them over.

So that’s the week. A peremptory strike reversed because the State’s accepted reason applied just as well to a juror it kept. A driving while suspended arrest upheld on the reason for the suspension and the notice process behind it. A third-DUI plea where the client gets a chance to amend her claims, starting with a diversion offer she says she never heard about. A habitual offender sentence reversed a second time for the same missing exhibit, and two more six-person jury claims that came too late. On the injury side, an agritourism immunity that couldn’t survive its own photo metadata, and a punitive damages denial reversed under Perlmutter.

The pattern, if you want one: in nearly every case, the party who won was the one whose claim the record actually supported. If it isn’t in the record, it didn’t happen.

One caveat, colleague to colleague. These are summaries, most of these decisions aren’t final until the rehearing window runs, and nothing in this episode is legal advice. Pull the opinion before you rely on a word of it.

If you want any of this week’s opinions, or the Melbourne objection script from the deep dive, email me at Rory at the Safir lawyer dot com and I’ll send them over.

Take care of yourself, and take care of your clients.