Mancini v. State, 41872

• Decision Date: 14 February 1973
• Docket Number: No. 41872,41872
• Citation: 273 So.2d 371
• Parties: David Roland MANCINI, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 371

273 So.2d 371

David Roland MANCINI, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.

No. 41872.

Supreme Court of Florida,

Feb. 14, 1973.

Law Offices of Fred A. Jones, Jr., Miami, for petitioner.

Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and William W. Herring, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

DEKLE, Justice.

This cause is before us on petition for writ of certiorari to review the decision of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, reported at 254 So.2d 381.

On February 18, 1969, defendant, petitioner herein, was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of narcotics. He entered a plea of not guilty, waived trial by jury and on October 20, 1969, was tried before the Judge. Defendant was found guilty and sentenced to three months in the County Jail plus two months' probation. Notice of appeal was filed October 21, 1969.

On October 11, 1971, the district court affirmed the conviction, per curiam, citing State v. Wright, 224 So.2d 300 (Fla.1969) and Florida Appellate Rule 3.5(c), 32 F.S.A. The citation of this authority indicates that the district court's affirmance was based on the fact that defendant had failed to file a motion for new trial as essential for a review of the sufficiency of the evidence. In Wright, rendered June 18, 1969, this Court held that the filing of a motion for new trial based on insufficiency of the evidence was a prerequisite to any questioning of the sufficiency of the evidence upon appeal, the only exception being in capital cases.

On the day that the defendant was tried, October 20, 1969, this Court's opinion in State v. Wright, Supra, was on the books, having been rendered three months before the date of defendant's trial. However, defendant contends that he relied on the district court opinion in Owens v. State, 227 So.2d 241 (Fla.App.4th 1969), a decision which was entered September 30, 1969, but not rendered final by the denial of petition for rehearing until November 7, 1969. The district court in Owens held that where a defendant in a criminal case moved for a directed verdict on the ground that proof of value of the property taken was not presented, failure to move after verdict for a new trial did not preclude the defendant from raising such an issue on appeal. Owens was reversed by this Court in State v. Owens, 233 So.2d 389 (Fla.1970), on April 9, 1970, and holds (as did Wright) that a motion for new trial based on alleged insufficiency of the evidence must be filed as a prerequisite to any questioning of the sufficiency of evidence on appeal in criminal cases.

With the conflict in the expressions and applications of this important rule of law in the various cases, we must resolve the matter.

We have carefully re-examined all of the authorities which have gone 'back and forth' on this rule of law and have reached the conclusion that logic and justice lie with that rule which affords a review of a trial judge's actions, be they upon a motion for directed verdict Or a motion for new trial.

The case reviewed in our Owens came from the Fourth District, Owens v. State, 227 So.2d 241 (Fla.App.4th 1969). In an incisive opinion by Judge Walden, the matter was there put in its proper perspective. We now recognize the correctness of that view and hereby return to that able district court opinion which recognizes our rule in State v. Wright, Supra, and its predecessor cases requiring a determination by the trial judge on motion for new trial in order to test the sufficiency of the evidence to support a verdict, but then points out the alternative of a review of a motion for directed verdict, in the following language: (p. 242)

'However, our reading of them (Wright and earlier cases) does not foreclose or prohibit an alternate method of presenting the matter to the trial judge by motion for a directed verdict. The important criteria, as we understand it, is that the trial court should have the opportunity to assess the sufficiency of the evidence. In Hogwood v. State, Fla.App.1965, 175 So.2d 817, it was held that a motion for a directed verdict was sufficient to preserve the question in a non jury trial. In Nelson v. State, Fla.1957, 97 So.2d 250, it was concluded that by assigning as error the denial by the trial court of a motion for a directed verdict the sufficiency of evidence was raised for an appellate court to review. In Wiggins v. State, Fla.App.1958, 101 So.2d 833, 835, a motion for a directed verdict was made after the state's case was presented. It was not renewed after defendant put on evidence but, regardless, the court ruled that the subject of the motion could be reviewed on appeal, the subject being the failure to prove an element of a crime.'

It will be seen that the cited Nelson v. State, Supra, our own holding, recognizes the alternative means for reviewing the legal sufficiency of the evidence in the case of a motion for directed verdict which affords the trial judge opportunity for review as to the legal sufficiency of the evidence to support a verdict of guilty.

We, therefore, recede from the limitation in our prior Owens and Wright holdings in cases wherein, as here and in Owens, there is a motion for directed verdict assigned as error, in which case we hold this to be a sufficient predicate for appellate review of the sufficiency of the evidence to support a guilty verdict, without a motion for new trial.

It is a gross injustice, once the trial judge has been allowed to 'make his error', not to hold him to a review of his ruling on the motion for directed verdict which was made. The reason for the Owens Rule has been met by affording the trial judge 'his guess' upon directed verdict. When the reason for a rule disappears, so should the rule. At least the rule should not apply when the reason for it is absent.

As important as procedure may be, it must yield to substance where manifest injustice appears. Our late, revered Justice Glenn Terrell in his inimitable style expressed it well in Kelley v. Gottschalk, 143 Fla. 371, 196 So. 844 (1940), when he said:

'The administration of justice is the most precious function a democracy is called on to perform and no rule of procedure was ever intended to defeat it. Courts must have rules to guide them in the performance of this function, but it has never been considered improper to toss right and common sense in the scales and weigh them with the evidence to reach a just result. Rules of procedure are as essential to administer justice as they are to conduct a...