Second District Court of Appeal Rules Jury Finding on Victim Injury Wasn’t Required Due to Overwhelming Evidence
TAMPA, Fla. – A Florida appeals court has affirmed the conviction and sentence of a woman who ran over a victim twice with a car, ruling that while the trial court erred in calculating her sentence, the mistake was “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”
On Friday, the Second District Court of Appeal released a decision in the case of Cathleen Namanda Harvis, who appealed her conviction for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Harvis’s legal team argued that the trial court improperly added victim injury points to her sentencing scoresheet, a task her lawyers claimed should have been done by the jury.
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The case centered on a physical altercation that began in an alleyway when the victim, confronted her ex-boyfriend. According to court documents, Harvis, who was the ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend, was waiting in her car.
She accelerated and ran over the victim, then reversed and ran over her again. The victim sustained a broken scapula, severe abrasions, and road rash, requiring a hospital stay and six weeks of bed rest.
At trial, the prosecution originally charged Harvis with aggravated battery because she intentionally caused “great bodily harm” to the victim. However, the charge was amended to aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, which didn’t require the jury to make a specific finding on the extent of the victim’s injuries.
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After the jury found Harvis guilty, the trial court added 18 points to her sentencing scoresheet for “moderate victim injury.” The added points increased Harvis’s lowest possible sentence, a move her attorneys argued was an overreach by the court. Her lawyers cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court case, Erlinger v. United States, which holds that any fact that increases a defendant’s potential sentence must be decided by a jury.
However, the appeals court was not persuaded. In its opinion, penned by Judge LaRose, the court acknowledged that an “Erlinger error” had occurred, but it was subject to a “harmless error review.” The court reasoned that the evidence of the victim’s injuries—photos, testimony from the victim, and even a concession from the defense counsel that the victim was “very much injured”—was so overwhelming that no reasonable jury could have found the injuries were anything less than moderate.
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“Our record review demonstrates that no reasonable jury would have returned a verdict finding that there was anything less than moderate injury,” the court stated.
This decision aligns with previous Florida case law, which has consistently held that errors of this type can be overlooked when the evidence is so clear that a jury’s finding on the disputed fact would have been the same. The court concluded that Harvis’s judgment and sentence were affirmed.
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