Hamilton v. State, 84-1098
| Decision Date | 29 April 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-1098,84-1098 |
| Citation | 11 Fla. L. Weekly 998,487 So.2d 407 |
| Parties | 11 Fla. L. Weekly 998 Paul C. HAMILTON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Julian S. Mack and Loren H. Cohen, Asst. Public Defenders, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Julie S. Thornton and Richard Doran, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.
Before HUBBART, NESBITT and JORGENSON, JJ.
We find no error in the trial court's finding below that the prosecuting attorney did not use his peremptory jury challenges in a racially discriminatory manner, based on the legal principles established in State v. Neil, 457 So.2d 481, 486, 487 n. 10 (Fla.1984). The record demonstrates that the defendant Paul Hamilton is black, that he was tried by an all-white jury, and that three black jurors were excused peremptorily--one by the defense and two by the state. A black juror, in fact, served as an alternate juror in the case. We see no basis to upset the trial court's finding that, on this record, there was no indication that the state was using its peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory manner. This being so, a Neil inquiry by the trial court into the state's reasons for exercising its peremptory challenges against the two black jurors herein was entirely unnecessary. The final judgment of conviction and sentence for robbery is therefore affirmed. See Neil v. State, supra; Jorgenson, Back to the Laboratory with Peremptory Challenges: A Florida Response, 12 Fla.St.U.L.Rev. 559, 568-70 (1984).
The grand theft conviction, however, must be reversed because it merges, for double jeopardy purposes, with the robbery conviction. The record affirmatively demonstrates that the defendant held up the victim at gunpoint and stole the victim's cash and automobile--all in a single transaction. One robbery was therefore committed--not a grand larceny of the automobile and a robbery of...
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Cruller v. State
..."[t]here was little or no temporal or geographic break between the two takings" of property from one individual); Hamilton v. State, 487 So.2d 407, 408 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986) (reversing defendant's conviction for grand theft, where the defendant also had been convicted of robbery for holding th......
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Macklin v. State, 83-2568
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Howard v. State, 97-3933.
...car were not two offenses, but instead were "merely degree variants of the core offense of theft." Howard also cites Hamilton v. State, 487 So.2d 407 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986), wherein the court held that dual convictions for grand theft and robbery constituted double jeopardy, once the evidence s......
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