State v. Perkins
| Decision Date | 26 May 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 49609,49609 |
| Citation | 349 So.2d 161 |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. John Willie PERKINS, Respondent. |
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and Paul H. Zacks and Charles W. Musgrove, Asst. Attys. Gen., for petitioner.
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Craig S. Barnard, Asst. Public Defender, for respondent.
Petitioner Perkins was tried and convicted for the attempted rape of a six-year-old girl. The victim and her brother testified the crime was attempted while the victim was in her bedroom late at night. In addition to this testimony, the testimony of Jacqueline McKree was introduced by the state. McKree testified that, when she was fourteen years old, Perkins had entered her room late at night and grabbed her. Perkins had been charged with a crime stemming from the alleged incident and was acquitted.
The District Court of Appeal, Fourth District, reversed Perkins' conviction because of error by the trial court in admitting into evidence McKee's testimony. 1 The court held that evidence of crimes for which a defendant has been acquitted is always barred from admission into evidence under the guarantee against double jeopardy in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We granted certiorari because of conflict 2 with Lawson v. State, 304 So.2d 522 (Fla.3d DCA 1974), which held that such evidence is not always so barred.
Both Lawson and this case were decided under Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970), where it was held that the doctrine of collateral estoppel is embodied in the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment guarantee against double jeopardy. The rule of Ashe, as stated by the U.S. Supreme Court, is that,
". . . Where a previous judgment of acquittal was based upon a general verdict, as is usually the case, this approach requires a court to 'examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rationale jury could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration.' " 397 U.S. at 444, 90 S.Ct. at 1194.
Thus, the Ashe rule forbids the admission in a subsequent trial of evidence of an acquitted collateral crime only when the prior verdict clearly decided in the defendant's favor the issue for which admission is sought. From Ashe we know the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not forbid the admission of all evidence of acquitted collateral crimes, but only that evidence which the state is collaterally estopped from introducing. Thus, the District Court in this case misapplied the Ashe rule, while in terms of the Fifth Amendment, Lawson was correctly decided.
Our inquiry into this case does not end with harmonization of the conflict. This Court has never been squarely presented with the issue of whether evidence of crimes for which a defendant has been tried and acquitted may be admitted at a subsequent trial. We undertake to confront the issue now while we have before us the record of a proceeding in which such evidence was admitted.
The preliminary inquiry in the admission of evidence of other crimes is whether such evidence is relevant. Under the rule announced in Williams v. State, 110 So.2d 654 (Fla.1959), evidence of other crimes is admissible in a criminal trial if relevant to prove anything other than the bad character of the defendant or his propensity to commit the crime charged. However, Williams makes no distinction between evidence of acquitted crimes and evidence of collateral crimes for which there has not been an acquittal (including uncharged crimes, crimes for which the charges have been dropped 3 and convicted crimes).
Federal courts generally permit the admission of evidence of collateral crimes resulting in acquittals when relevant. 4 Contrary to the general trend, the Fifth Circuit does not permit admission of such evidence. Blackburn v. Cross, 510 F.2d 1014 (5th Cir. 1975); Wingate v. Wainwright, 464 F.2d 209 (5th Cir. 1972). Similarly, there is a split over the issue in state jurisdictions. 5 And, too, there is disagreement within our state's District Courts of Appeal, as shown by the decision in this case when compared with other decisions. 6
We agree with Wingate that it is fundamentally unfair to a defendant to admit evidence of acquitted...
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State v. Paradis
...that he is guilty of a specific crime." 1 464 F.2d at 213-14. See also Blackburn v. Cross, 510 F.2d 1014 (5th Cir.1975); State v. Perkins, 349 So.2d 161 (Fla.1977). The majority argues in response that the Washington jury which acquitted the appellant of Currier's murder may have done so on......
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Cook v. State
...the criminal context raises special concerns. Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 445, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970), and State v. Perkins, 349 So.2d 161 (Fla.1977), recognized the proper operation of the doctrine in the criminal context, while Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10, 24,......
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Commonwealth v. Dorazio
...however, do not resolve the issue. Not all State courts follow the Supreme Court's holding in Dowling, supra. See State v. Perkins, 349 So.2d 161, 163–164 (Fla.1977) ; State v. Mundon, 129 Hawai‘i 1, 4, 292 P.3d 205 (2012) ; State v. Wakefield, 278 N.W.2d 307, 309 (Minn.1979) ; Kerbyson v. ......
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State v. Jarman
...Carolina are jurisdictions that consider it error to admit acquitted-act evidence at a subsequent trial. See, e.g., State v. Perkins, 349 So. 2d 161, 163–64 (Fla. 1977) ("[W]e hold that evidence of crimes for which a defendant has been acquitted is not admissible in a subsequent trial."); S......