Lincoln v. State
| Decision Date | 21 November 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 64816,64816 |
| Parties | Connie Faye LINCOLN, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
James B. Gibson, Public Defender and Larry B. Henderson, Asst. Public Defender, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Daytona Beach, for petitioner.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Evelyn D. Golden, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for respondent.
We review the decision of the District Court of Appeal, Fifth District, in Lincoln v. State, 444 So.2d 27 (Fla. 5th DCA 1983), which the district court has certified to be in express and direct conflict with A.Y.G. v. State, 414 So.2d 1158 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982) and Gains v. State, 417 So.2d 719 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982), review denied, 426 So.2d 26 (Fla.1983). The district court held that the driving of a getaway car in an elusive manner in an attempt to avoid the police created a prima facie case from which the finder of fact at trial could properly infer complicity to commit the crime. We agree that, under the particular facts of the case before us, a prima facie case was made, and we approve the district court's affirmance of defendant's conviction of robbery.
Defendant drove her husband to a drugstore and waited for him in the automobile outside the drugstore while he went in and robbed the store at gunpoint. She then drove him from the scene of the robbery. They were pursued by law enforcement officers in a high-speed chase for four miles before she stopped the automobile. She was charged and convicted of robbery.
Defendant appealed to the district court and argued that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the robbery conviction. The district court acknowledged that several Florida cases have held that merely driving the perpetrator to and from the scene of the offense, absent any other incriminating involvement, is insufficient circumstantial evidence of the requisite intent to participate in the offense itself. It determined that the issue to be addressed in the present case was whether the added element of flight and police pursuit of the vehicle supplies the evidentiary basis for a finding of criminal intent. The Fifth District affirmed the conviction and held that the driving of a getaway car in an elusive manner in an attempt to avoid the police creates a prima facie case from which the finder of fact at trial may properly infer complicity in intent to commit the crime. Judge Dauksch, concurring specially, explained that the evidence of robbery in the present case is much stronger here than in A.Y.G. or Gains and that those cases are based on their distinct factual bases. Here, he points out, defendant knew in advance that her husband was intending to commit a robbery.
The present case is not factually on all fours with A.Y.G. and Gains because in those cases there was no evidence that defendants who drove the getaway cars knew of the crimes until after they occurred. In Gains, the First District concluded that the mere fact that Gains fled the scene after the crime does not exclude the reasonable inference that he had no knowledge of the crime until it actually occurred and thus did not intend to assist in its commission. In A.Y.G., the Third District held that the evidence that the defendant was present at the scene of the crime and drove the getaway car at the request of the perpetrator of the burglary does not exclude the reasonable inference that the defendant did not have knowledge of the crime until after it occurred.
In the present case, the evidence is stronger than in Gains and A.Y.G. Here, there is evidence from which...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Jones v. State
...action in submitting the cause for jury determination and the jury's consequent finding of the defendant's guilt. Accord, Lincoln v. State, 459 So.2d 1030 (Fla.1984); Heiney v. State, 447 So.2d 210 (Fla.1984); Rose v. State, 425 So.2d 521 (Fla.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1049, 103 S.Ct. 1......
-
State v. Sims
...of acquittal effectively requires direct evidence to establish identity. Orme v. State, 677 So.2d 258, 261 (Fla.1996); Lincoln v. State, 459 So.2d 1030, 1031–32 (Fla.1984). In Lincoln, the supreme court cited to State v. Allen, 335 So.2d 823, 826 (Fla.1976), in which it reviewed a corpus de......
-
Barwick v. State
...826 (Fla.1976). Whether the evidence fails to exclude all reasonable hypotheses of innocence is for the jury to decide. Lincoln v. State, 459 So.2d 1030, 1032 (Fla.1984). We have held that "[i]f there is room for a difference of opinion between reasonable people as to the proof or facts fro......
-
Fowler v. State, BC-400
...in the light most favorable to the state, citing, inter alia, Spinkellink v. State, 313 So.2d 666 (Fla.1975), and Lincoln v. State, 459 So.2d 1030 (Fla.1984). Further, the state asserts that we have "fashioned" a new standard of review in reversing Fowler's Perhaps the structure of our opin......