State v. Wilson
| Decision Date | 26 December 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 87575,87575 |
| Citation | 686 So.2d 569 |
| Parties | 22 Fla. L. Weekly S2 STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Milo WILSON, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General; Carolyn M. Snurkowski, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Georgina Jimenez-Orosa, Senior Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for Petitioner.
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender and Louis G. Carres, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, for Respondent.
We have for review Wilson v. State, 668 So.2d 998 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995), wherein the court certified:
1) Does the jury instruction given in this case impermissibly reduce the reasonable doubt standard below the protections of the due process clause?
2) If so, is such an instruction fundamental error?
See id. at 999-1000. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. We answer both questions in the negative and quash Wilson.
Milo Wilson and an accomplice accosted and robbed Mr. Ramsaroop and his companion, Ms. Wells, in a Wal-Mart parking lot, September 23, 1993. Wilson was arrested a few minutes later, charged with armed robbery, and convicted of grand theft. The district court reversed for two reasons: 1) The "reasonable doubt" comments made by the judge to the venire constituted fundamental error, and 2) the State could not seek a conviction on grand theft as a permissive lesser included offense of armed robbery because the information did not allege the value of the property taken. The court remanded for a new trial on petit theft and certified the above questions.
The State contends that the "reasonable doubt" comments were not improper, or alternatively, that if they were improper the error was not fundamental and required a contemporaneous objection.
Prior to selecting the jury, the judge spoke to the entire venire about "cardinal rules," which he said apply "in every criminal trial all over the United States of America."
Now, the third cardinal rule is that in order for you the jury to find the defendant guilty you must be satisfied, the State must convince you beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. That's what's known as standard of proof. That's a landmark concept, a bedrock foundation of the American criminal jurisprudence system. That is any time any jury anywhere in the United States of America finds a defendant guilty of committing a crime, whether that be stealing a six-pack of beer, robbery, murder, rape, drug trafficking, arson, burglary; no matter what the charge is if the jury finds the defendant guilty that means that jury has been convinced beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt.
Now, I'll give you a more elaborate definition of what that phrase beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt means when I give you the legal instructions at the conclusion of the trial. Suffice it to say it's a very heavy burden the state shoulders whenever it charges somebody with committing a crime. In order to secure a conviction that is it has to convince a jury beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt. But even though it's a heavy burden the State does, I repeat, stress, and emphasize, the State does not have to convince you to an absolute certainty of the defendant's guilt. Nothing is one hundred percent certain, nothing is absolutely certain in life other than death and taxes. So the point I'm trying to make is you can still have a doubt as to the defendant's guilt and still find him guilty so long as it's not a reasonable doubt. A reasonable doubt simply stated is a doubt you can attach a reason to.
If at the conclusion of this trial you have a doubt as to the defendant's guilt that you can attach a reason to you must find the defendant not guilty. But if on the other hand at the conclusion of this trial the only kind of doubt you have as to the...
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Morrison v. State
...to violate Morrison's rights to a fair trial and to due process of law, an issue similar to that addressed by this Court in State v. Wilson, 686 So.2d 569 (Fla.1996). In Wilson, the trial judge made extemporaneous remarks to the venire regarding the State's burden of proof, including the fo......
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Floyd v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of Corr., Case No. 3:09-cv-1017-J-34TEM
...define that term for jury, especially in light of lack of contemporaneous objection made to jury instruction as given). In State v. Wilson, 686 So.2d 569 (Fla. 1996), we determined that no fundamental error occurred when a preliminary instruction on reasonable doubt was utilized by the tria......
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...itself to the extent that a verdict of guilty could not have been obtained without the assistance of the alleged error." State v. Wilson, 686 So.2d 569, 570 (Fla. 1996). Applying the facts here to the law in Florida at the time of Mr. Mendoza's direct appeal, the Court does not conclude tha......
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