CONTRERAS v. STATE (2023)

Appellant, Michelle Contreras, challenges her convictions and sentences for trafficking in illegal narcotics, conspiring to traffic in illegal narcotics, and use of a two-way communications device to commit the trafficking offense. Discerning no reversible error, we affirm without prejudice to raising the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel in a timely motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. See Steiger v. State, 328 So. 3d 926, 929 (Fla. 2021) (holding “unpreserved claims of ineffective assistance of counsel cannot be raised or result in reversal on direct appeal” absent a showing of fundamental error); see also Britton v. State, 414 So. 2d 638, 639 (Fla. 5th DCA 1982) (“[T]he order of presentation of evidence and witnesses is largely a function of the trial court's discretion; this discretion is broad enough to allow the state to introduce, after the defendant's case, evidence not strictly in rebuttal, so long as the evidence was admissible in the main case.”); Lewis v. State, 711 So. 2d 205, 208 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998) (concluding prosecutor's comments during closing arguments that bolstered victim testimony and attacked defense counsel were harmless error given overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt).

Affirmed.

MILLER, J.