Johnson v. State of Florida · No. 2D2024-0982 (Fla. 2nd DCA) · Decided September 25, 2026
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A Sarasota County jury convicted Brian K. Johnson of sexual battery against his stepniece on two of five counts. The Second District Court of Appeal has now thrown out those convictions and ordered a new trial — holding the trial court let the jury hear a misleadingly incomplete version of the alleged victim’s own prior statements.
What Happened at Trial
Johnson was charged with five counts of sexual battery against a minor in his familial custody, identified in the opinion only as K.M. The jury convicted him on two counts and acquitted him on three, and he was sentenced to twenty years in prison followed by ten years of sex offender probation.
Before trial, the State moved to exclude any reference to a November 2013 Department of Children and Families investigation in which K.M. was interviewed twice. In both interviews, K.M. denied having any sexual relationship with Johnson — the opposite of what she would later testify to at trial. In the same interviews, she separately alleged that another person had inappropriately touched her. The trial court ruled that K.M.’s allegations against another person were not relevant to Johnson’s charges, but that the door could be opened to them for impeachment purposes.
At trial, K.M. testified that she had in fact been in a sexual relationship with Johnson beginning around July 2013. On cross-examination, defense counsel was permitted to establish that K.M. had denied any relationship with Johnson during the 2013 DCF interviews and that she had made allegations against another person during those same interviews — but the trial court barred defense counsel from telling the jury that those allegations were sexual in nature. The jury heard only that K.M. had made unspecified “allegations of abuse.”
What the Court Held
The Second District held that limiting the cross-examination this way was an abuse of discretion. The excluded testimony went to a specific defense theory: that K.M.’s accusation against Johnson — not made until 2020, years after the fact — was fabricated. If jurors had known K.M. was willing to accuse another person of sexual abuse during the very same 2013 investigation in which she denied any relationship with Johnson, that would have undercut any suggestion that fear or reticence explained her silence about Johnson at the time. Withholding the sexual nature of that allegation, the court reasoned, denied the jury the comparison the defense needed to make that argument.
The court also held the error was not harmless. It pointed to trial testimony from K.M.’s grandmother that K.M. had once admitted lying about having sex with Johnson because of a fight with a boyfriend, and noted that the jury’s decision to acquit Johnson on three of the five original counts suggested at least some jurors already doubted parts of K.M.’s account. With the case turning almost entirely on K.M.’s credibility against Johnson’s denial, the court found a reasonable possibility the missing evidence affected the verdict.
The court reversed Johnson’s convictions and sentences on the two counts of which he was found guilty and remanded for a new trial on those counts only.
The Opinion
Download the full opinion (PDF)
| Court | Second District Court of Appeal |
| Case No. | 2D2024-0982 |
| Lower Court | Circuit Court, Sarasota County (Judge Dana Moss) |
| Decided | September 25, 2026 |