Hampton v. State

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of appellant’s prior convictions in his trial for felony battery. Under section 90.806(1), Florida Statutes, the state was allowed to intro duce appellant’s prior convictions to impeach his exculpatory out-of-court statements, which were elicited by defense counsel through another witness to suggest that appellant acted in self-defense. As we cautioned in Gonzalez v. State, “a non-testifying defendant who brings out his or her own exculpatory statements through another witness, ‘runs the risk of having those statements…