Monroe v. State, 78-2085

• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: RYDER; HOBSON, Acting C. J., and DANAHY
• Citation: Monroe v. State, 384 So.2d 50 (Fla. App. 1980)
• Decision Date: 04 June 1980
• Docket Number: No. 78-2085,78-2085
• Parties: Charles MONROE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Page 50

384 So.2d 50

Charles MONROE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 78-2085.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

June 4, 1980.

B. Robert Ohle, St. Petersburg, for appellant.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Charles Corces, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.

RYDER, Judge.

Charles Monroe appeals from his convictions of battery of a law enforcement officer and obstructing or opposing an officer without violence. The appellant raises three points on appeal; we find two of the appellant's points to be without merit but agree with the appellant's third point in which he contends that the trial court erred by not giving a requested jury instruction on defense of others.

On June 26, 1978, two undercover police officers attempted to arrest the appellant's brother. The appellant, who claimed he did not know the two men chasing his brother were police officers, attempted to aid his brother. Although there was substantial evidence which tended to prove that the appellant probably knew that the men were in fact police officers, the appellant testified on his own behalf that he did not know that the men were police officers. As this was the appellant's theory of defense, and since there was evidence to support that theory, however tenuous it might have been, the appellant was entitled to the requested jury instruction on defense of others.

In the case sub judice we are constrained to hold the trial Court in error in refusing to give the jury the requested instruction . . . . However, disdainfully the trial Judge may have felt about the merits of such defense...