State v. Christian
| Decision Date | 01 May 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 88781,88781 |
| Citation | 692 So.2d 889 |
| Parties | 22 Fla. L. Weekly S235 STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Larry CHRISTIAN, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General; James W. Rogers, Tallahassee Bureau Chief, Criminal Appeals and Giselle Lylen Rivera, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Petitioner.
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender and Kathleen Stover, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, for Respondent.
We have for review Christian v. State, 693 So.2d 990 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996), which conflicts with Lifred v. State, 643 So.2d 94 (Fla 4th DCA 1994). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. We quash Christian.
Sixteen year-old Larry Christian accompanied his twenty year-old brother, Wesley, to the Inferno Club in Perry, Florida, on February 14, 1994, and when Chad Ellis, an Inferno patron, picked a fight with Wesley, Christian approached Ellis from behind and shot him three times. Another patron, Pedro Bishop, interceded and grabbed Christian around the legs and Christian shot him also. Ellis died; Bishop lived.
Christian was charged with second-degree murder with a firearm, attempted second-degree murder with a firearm, and discharging a firearm in a public building. Following trial, he was convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm, aggravated battery with a firearm, and discharging a firearm in an occupied building. He was sentenced to concurrent twenty-five-, fifteen-, and fifteen-year terms of imprisonment respectively, with the three-year mandatory minimum portions of the first two firearms offenses running consecutively. The district court reversed the consecutive mandatory minimum terms, barring such a sentence "absent proof of separate offenses against separate victims, committed at separate times and places." Christian, 693 So.2d at 993.
Christian asserts that where multiple mandatory minimum terms are based on a single firearm used in one continuous episode, only concurrent terms can be imposed. He contends that the district court ruled properly. We disagree.
Section 775.087, Florida Statutes (1993), authorizes imposition of a three-year mandatory minimum term for use of a firearm during the commission of certain crimes:
(2)(a) Any person who is convicted of:
1. Any murder, sexual battery, robbery, burglary, arson, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, kidnapping, escape, breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony, or aircraft piracy, or any attempt to commit the aforementioned crimes ...
....
and who had in his possession a "firearm" ... shall be sentenced to a minimum term of imprisonment of 3 calendar years.
§ 775.087, Fla. Stat. (1993).
The above section is silent concerning the stacking of mandatory minimum terms, and section 775.021, Florida Statutes (1993), entitled "Rules of construction," offers little additional guidance:
(4)(a) Whoever, in the course of one criminal transaction or episode, commits an act or acts which constitute one or more separate criminal offenses, upon conviction and adjudication of guilt, shall be sentenced separately for each criminal offense; and the sentencing judge may order the sentences to be served concurrently or consecutively.
§ 775.021, Fla. Stat. (1993). Accordingly, we turn to case law for direction.
As a general rule, for offenses arising from a single episode, stacking is permissible where the violations of the mandatory minimum statutes cause injury to multiple victims, 1 or multiple injuries to one victim. 2 The injuries bifurcate the crimes for stacking purposes. 3 The stacking of firearm mandatory minimum terms thus is permissible where the defendant shoots at multiple victims, 4 and impermissible where the defendant does not fire the weapon. 5
In the present case, Christian shot two people. Stacking is permissible. We quash Christian and remand for re-imposition of the original sentence. We approve the result in Lifred.
It is so ordered.
1 See, e.g., Downs v. State, 616 So.2d 444 (Fla.1993) (); State v. Enmund, 476 So.2d 165 (Fla.1985) (). The injury may consist of the heightened danger caused by a fired weapon. See State v. Thomas, 487 So.2d 1043 (Fla.1986) ().
2 See, e.g.,...
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