IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
FIRST DISTRICT, STATE OF FLORIDA
TOMMY ALLEN KROLL, NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO
FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND
Appellant, DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED
v. CASE NO. 1D16-2347
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
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Opinion filed July 20, 2017.
An appeal from the Circuit Court for Escambia County.
Thomas V. Dannheisser, Judge.
Andy Thomas, Public Defender, and A. Victoria Wiggins, Assistant Public
Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellant.
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Kaitlin Weiss and Virginia Harris, Assistant
Attorneys General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
WOLF, J.
Appellant challenges his convictions for burglary of an occupied dwelling
and grand theft. We agree with appellant that the trial court erred in admitting
Williams Rule evidence that he committed a burglary of a different residence
because that evidence became a feature of the trial. See Cannon v. State, 51 So. 3d
1261, 1262 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011). We also accept the State’s concession that the
Williams Rule evidence should not have been admitted because the facts of the
collateral crime and the underlying crime were not sufficiently similar, and the
points of similarity did not have a special character, nor were they so unusual as to
point to appellant. See Drake v. State, 400 So. 2d 1217, 1219 (Fla. 1981). The error
in admitting the Williams Rule evidence was not harmless. Thus, we REVERSE.
ROWE and KELSEY, JJ., CONCUR.
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