State v. Jouzdani

The defendant, Arman Jouzdani, appeals his convictions for kidnapping, extortion and grand theft. He presents five arguments in the appeal, but we need only address one of them as we find it to be dispositive. We conclude that the trial *1266court erred in allowing the prosecutor to impeach a defense witness with evidence of prior criminal offenses. The prosecutor failed to prove that the witness had been adjudicated guilty of the offenses, and therefore failed to establish that he had any prior convictions that could be used for impeachment under the Florida Evidence Code. Because we are unable…