Koontz v. State

Decision Date15 November 1967
Docket NumberNo. 67-225,67-225
Citation204 So.2d 224
PartiesJohn Wayne KOONTZ, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
CourtFlorida District Court of Appeals

Charles L. Cetti, Tampa, for appellant.

Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and William D. Roth, Asst. Atty. Gen., Lakeland, for appellee.

PIERCE, Judge.

This case is an appeal by John Wayne Koontz, defendant below, from a judgment and sentence pronounced against him by the Criminal Court of Record for Hillsborough County, pursuant to a jury verdict finding him guilty upon an information charging him with the offense of attempted robbery.

Koontz freely admitted committing the offense alleged, which was the attempt to rob, at the point of a shotgun, a Kayo Service Station at about 1:25 A.M. in the nighttime. When the station attendant, one Whelden, made a lunge at Koontz's unloaded gun, Koontz turned and ran from the station.

The defense at the trial was coercion, based upon Koontz's claim that he was terrorized by members of a so-called 'Spider Gang' and by the leader of the gang, one Lee Arnold Shinleaver, into attempting the robbery. It was contended that repeated physical abuses and dire threats made by the gang members against Koontz and certain members of his family caused him to join in their criminal depredations.

At the conclusion of all the testimony Koontz requested in writing the following instruction to the jury:

'I charge you that a person attempting to rob another under compulsion and coercion is not guilty of attempted robbery or any crime whatsoever if such person was subjected to real, eminent, and impending danger, or if he had reasonable grounds to believe that such danger was real, eminent, and impending and attempted such robbery because of such belief.'

The trial Court refused such instruction because it was 'not applicable'. Upon appeal from the ensuing conviction, the refusal to give the foregoing quoted instruction is the sole point urged here for reversal.

There was no denial that defendant committed the offense charged. He even took the witness stand voluntarily and told all about it. He testified, supported by his married sister, that the principal gang members, of whom there were some seven or eight, first began forcibly taking his pay checks from the State Road Department for about two and a half months until their harassment made him quit; that they beat him unmercifully on several occasions to make him join their gang; that they threatened several times to kill him if he did not join and follow their orders to rob and steal; that they threatened bodily harm to his sister, and also to his mother with whom he lived; that right after the attempted robbery for which he was tried they beat him up for having 'botched' the job by fleeing from the Service Station without going through with the robbery; and that even after he was arrested and in jail there were reports relayed to him by deputy sheriffs at the jail, and confirmed by them, that the gang was going to bomb his mother's home.

Koontz identified them as Shinleaver, James Harold Cambron, Harry Winters, David Jinks, Pat Jinks, and Doug McGinnis. They were all apparently well known to the officers but none of them testified except Cambron, and so far as the record shows were not even subpoenaed. And, strangely enough, Cambron testified under protection of immunity, but even he did not deny that Koontz was coerced or intimidated by the gang, nor was he asked about it. So that, actually there was no direct testimony contradicting the evidence of coercion or intimidation.

The foregoing are just some of the highlights of the unusual, and perhaps fantastic, defense of coercion in this case. If the jurors believed it, or if it even raised a reasonable doubt in their minds as to his criminal intent to commit the offense charged, it would be a legal defense. In any event, he would be...

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23 cases
  • Palmes v. State
    • United States
    • Florida Supreme Court
    • March 5, 1981
    ...alibi, Davis v. State, 254 So.2d 221 (Fla. 3d DCA 1971); Watson v. State, 200 So.2d 270 (Fla. 2d DCA 1967); coercion, Koontz v. State, 204 So.2d 224 (Fla. 2d DCA 1967), entrapment, Kwasniewski v. State, 303 So.2d 373 (Fla. 1st DCA 1974); Stiglitz v. State, 270 So.2d 410 (Fla. 4th DCA 1972),......
  • Wright v. State
    • United States
    • Florida District Court of Appeals
    • August 11, 1981
    ...of duress as a defense to crimes other than homicide, e. g., Hall v. State, 136 Fla. 644, 187 So. 392 (1939) (perjury); Koontz v. State, 204 So.2d 224 (Fla.2d DCA 1967) (attempted robbery). In a case of first impression in this state, the First District held that the defense is not availabl......
  • Driggers v. State
    • United States
    • Florida Supreme Court
    • December 23, 2005
    ...may apply where gang members threatened harm to the defendant if he did not commit robbery of another person, see Koontz v. State, 204 So.2d 224 (Fla. 2d DCA 1967), or where threats are made by kidnappers to the defendant that he would be harmed if he did not engage in an extortion scheme t......
  • Gahley v. State
    • United States
    • Florida District Court of Appeals
    • August 30, 1990
    ...and impending and of a nature to induce a well-grounded apprehension of death or serious bodily harm if the act is not done. Koontz v. State, 204 So.2d 224. The trial court denied the request for a special instruction, observing the matter could be argued to the jury as dealing with the def......
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