HENRY E. CRUTCHFIELD, JR., APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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PER CURIAM.
Appellant was charged by indictment with first degree murder and after a jury trial was found guilty of second degree murder with a firearm, a lesser included offense. He was adjudicated guilty and sentenced to seventeen years imprisonment with a three year mandatory minimum, followed by ten years probation. This appeal follows. We affirm.
Appellant’s conviction for the killing of his twin brother, Harry, was tried under a theory of transferred intent, the state contending that appellant intended to shoot a deputy sheriff rather than his brother. Appellant contended that he did not intend to shoot anyone, and that the firearm went off by accident when he tripped over a rug.
We conclude the trial court did not err in denying appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal. See State v. Law, 559 So. 2d 187 (Fla.1989), and Cochran v. State, 547 So. 2d 928 (Fla.1989).
GLICKSTEIN, C.J., and WARNER, J., concur. GARRETT, J., dissents with opinion.
GARRETT, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent for three reasons. First, I believe that the state failed to establish a prima facie case that appellant intended to shoot a deputy sheriff. The state merely stacked inference upon inference to support its theory of why the shooting occurred. Second, the state failed to present evidence from which the jury could have excluded every reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt. Thus, the trial judge should have granted the motion for a judgment of acquittal made by appellant at the close of the state’s case. Third, assuming, arguendo, that the state established a pri-ma facie case, I believe that the state failed to produce competent, substantial evidence to contradict appellant’s version of the events. The state also stacked inference upon inference to support its theory of how the shooting occurred. Therefore, in any event, the trial judge should have granted the motion for a judgment of acquittal made by appellant at the close of all the evidence in the case.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Harmon v. State, 987 So. 2d 241 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008)…); Vining v. State, 637 So. 2d 921, 926 (Fla.1994). And the trial court erred by not permitting Appellant to testify about his intent at the time of the charged offense. See Smith v. State, 357 So. 2d 482 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978) and Crutchfield v. State, 589 So. 2d 1028 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991). However, these errors were not preserved by Appellant presenting the issues to the trial court for its consideration. Thus, I concur. * These errors are conceded in Appellee’s brief but affirmance is sought on preservation…
Authorities Cited
- State v. Ronnie S. LAW, 559 So. 2d 187 (Fla. 1989)
- Cochran v. State, 547 So. 2d 928 (Fla. 1989)