JONES v. STATE (2020)

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.

Alex JONES, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Case No. 5D19-2771

Decided: December 31, 2020

James S. Purdy, Public Defender, and Steven N. Gosney, Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and L. Charlene Matthews, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.

Alex Jones appeals the judgment and sentence entered after he was convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm. He argues that certain comments made by the prosecutor during opening statement and closing argument constituted fundamental error. We agree that, in discussing Jones’ self-defense claim, it was clearly improper for the prosecutor to suggest to the jury that it should consider whether the victim “deserved to die” or “needed to die.” However, after considering the totality of the record, we cannot conclude that the improper comments “reach[ed] down into the validity of the trial itself to the extent that a verdict of guilty could not have been obtained without the alleged error.” Johnson v. State, 238 So. 3d 726, 740 (Fla. 2018) (quoting Kilgore v. State, 688 So. 2d 895, 898 (Fla. 1996)).

AFFIRMED.

EVANDER, C.J.

HARRIS and SASSO, JJ., concur.

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