MONTRELL WILLIAMS,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA,

Fla. 3d DCA | 2019-06-12
No. 18-1188
Schlesinger, J., Salter, J., Fernandez, J., Lindsey, J.
274 So. 3d 527 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (2019)

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.

Holding

The trial court's failure to instruct the jury on Florida Standard Jury Instruction 3.7 regarding plea of not guilty, reasonable doubt, and burden of proof constitutes fundamental error requiring reversal and remand for a new trial.

Headnotes

[1] The trial court's failure to instruct the jury on Florida Standard Jury Instruction (Criminal) 3.7 regarding plea of not guilty, reasonable doubt, and burden of proof con…

Previewing 1 of 1 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence
Key Quotes

“the trial court's failure to instruct the jury as to Florida Standard Jury Instruction (Criminal) 3.7 Plea of Not Guilty; Reasonable Doubt, and Burden of Proof, or any similar instruction, constituted fundamental error.”

Citation to Smith v. State, 260 So. 3d 578 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019)
Facts & Procedural History

Montrell Williams was convicted by jury trial of burglary, trespass, theft, and criminal mischief. The trial court failed to give the jury Florida Sta…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.

Topics
Plea Of Not Guilty Criminal Mischief Theft Trespass

Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Plea Of Not Guilty cases and more on FLexlaw

Opinion of the Court
Lindsey

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed June 12, 2019.

________________

No. 3D18-1188 Lower Tribunal No. 17-23635 ________________

Montrell Williams, Appellant,

vs.

The State of Florida, Appellee.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, John Schlesinger, Judge.

Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Susan S. Lerner, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Sandra Lipman, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before SALTER, FERNANDEZ and LINDSEY, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

The defendant, Montrell Williams, appeals the trial court’s final judgment of conviction and sentence for burglary, trespass, theft, and criminal mischief. At the

Footnotes
2 defendant’s jury trial, Florida Standard Jury Instruction (Criminal) 3.7, “Plea of Not Guilty; Reasonable Doubt; and Burden of Proof,” was not given to the jury, nor was it included in the written jury instructions. The State has confessed error on this point, as it is fundamental error for a trial court to fail to instruct the jury on the contents of Standard Jury Instruction 3.7. Smith v. State, 260 So. 3d 578 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019) (“[T]he trial court's failure to instruct the jury as to Florida Standard Jury Instruction (Criminal) 3.7 Plea of Not Guilty; Reasonable Doubt, and Burden of Proof, or any similar instruction, constituted fundamental error.”). Accordingly, we reverse the defendant’s conviction and sentence and remand for a new trial. Reversed and remanded.

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw