LAZARO SANTANA
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
Prosecutors have wide latitude in closing argument to argue and draw reasonable inferences from the evidence presented at trial.
[1] Prosecutors have wide latitude in closing argument to review evidence and draw reasonable inferences therefrom, provided the argument is confined to facts and evidence pr…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“[A]ttorneys should be afforded great latitude in their closing arguments and that a closing argument is proper so long as they confine their arguments to the facts and evidence presented to the jury and all logical deductions from the facts and evidence.”
The court cited State v. Perez for the standard governing permissible closing argument.
Lazaro Santana appealed a conviction from Miami-Dade County Circuit Court, challenging the propriety of the prosecution's closing argument.…
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Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed October 22, 2026.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
No. 3D25-0621
Lower Tribunal No. F85-22902
Lazaro Santana,
Appellant,
vs.
State of Florida,
Appellee.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Carmen
Cabarga, Judge.
Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Amy Weber, Assistant Public
Defender, for appellant.
James Uthmeier, Attorney General and Lourdes B. Fernandez,
Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Before FERNANDEZ, GORDO and GOODEN, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Affirmed. See Mintz v. State, 349 So. 3d 531, 533 (Fla. 3d DCA 2022) ("In closing argument, counsel is permitted to review the evidence and fairly discuss and comment upon properly admitted testimony and logical inferences from that evidence. The proper exercise of closing argument is to review the evidence and to explicate those inferences which may reasonably be drawn from the evidence." (citations omitted)); State v. Perez, 402 So. 3d
1130, 1142 (Fla. 3d DCA 2025) (holding “[a]ttorneys should be afforded great latitude in their closing arguments” and that a closing argument is proper so long as they "confine their arguments to the facts and evidence presented to the jury and all logical deductions from the facts and evidence” (citation omitted)); Kirkpatrick v. State, 346 So. 3d 687, 695 (Fla. 1st DCA 2022) ("[P]rosecutors have wide latitude in closing argument to argue and to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence.”); Covington v. State, 842 So. 2d
170, 172 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003) (“It is of course permissible for counsel to argue, based on the record, that one witness should be believed and another should not."); Liscinsky v. State, 700 So. 2d 171, 172 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997) ("The trial court did not err by allowing an officer to testify that a witness to the crime identified Appellant, by name, as the perpetrator at the initial investigation immediately following the incident. Such testimony is not hearsay when the identifying witness is before the court and testifies to that effect at trial.").
3
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Liscinsky v. State, 700 So. 2d 171 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997)
- Khiary Dejuan Mintz v. State, 349 So. 3d 531 (Fla. 3d DCA 2022)