State v. Waskin
| Decision Date | 03 December 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-2474,84-2474 |
| Citation | 481 So.2d 492,11 Fla. L. Weekly 494 |
| Parties | 11 Fla. L. Weekly 494 The STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Robert WASKIN, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Calianne P. Lantz, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.
Jerrell A. Breslin, Miami, for appellee.
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and HENDRY and DANIEL S. PEARSON, JJ.
This is an appeal by the State from an order dismissing an information which charged the defendant with soliciting one Tom Tretola, an undercover police officer believed by the defendant to be a hitman, to murder the defendant's ex-wife. 1 The trial court concluded from the undisputed facts (consisting primarily of the taped conversation between the defendant and the prospective "hitman") that, although the defendant discussed the possibility of having his ex-wife killed, he and the undercover officer "never came to an agreement about the murder of the defendant's ex-wife ... and agreed only to meet again with the undercover officer for further discussions at an unspecified time in as many as five months from the time of the conversation." Contrary to the trial court, we find that the facts before it establish a prima facie case of the defendant's guilt of the crime of solicitation, whether or not it is deemed that an agreement was reached. Accordingly, we reverse the order under review and remand the case for trial.
Section 777.04(2), Florida Statutes (1983), under which the defendant was charged, provides in pertinent part:
"Whoever solicits another to commit an offense prohibited by law and in the course of such solicitation commands, encourages, hires, or requests another person to engage in specific conduct which would constitute such offense or an attempt to commit such an offense commits the offense of criminal solicitation...." (emphasis supplied).
It is well settled that W. LaFave & A. Scott, Handbook on Criminal Law § 58, at 414 (1972). This is so because the laws against solicitation are "concerned not only with the prevention of the harm that would result should the inducements prove successful, but with protecting inhabitants of this state from being exposed to inducements to commit or join in the commission of the crime specified...." Miller v. State, 430 So.2d 611, 614 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983) (quoting People v. Burt, 45 Cal.2d 311, 313, 288 P.2d 503, 505 (1955)). Thus, it is said that "[t]he gist of criminal solicitation is enticement...." 2 Hutchinson v. State, 315 So.2d 546, 548 (Fla. 2d DCA 1975) ().
With this as our backdrop, we turn to the facts of the present case.
As a result of some preliminary telephone conversations, the defendant met with Tretola late one evening in Tretola's car in the rear parking lot of a Miami motel. Their meeting was observed by a surveillance team of other police officers and their conversation recorded on tape. We here recount the pertinent portions of the conversation between them:
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Connolly v. State
...that the defendant or the person solicited commit any act in furtherance of the offense solicited. Id. See also State v. Waskin, 481 So.2d 492 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985) ; State v. Duque, 472 So.2d 758 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985).42 The crime of solicitation is complete when the defendant, with the intent t......
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