Astrop v. State

682 So. 2d 1153, 1996 Fla. App. LEXIS 10873, 1996 WL 595174
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedOctober 18, 1996
DocketNo. 94-443
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 682 So. 2d 1153 (Astrop v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Astrop v. State, 682 So. 2d 1153, 1996 Fla. App. LEXIS 10873, 1996 WL 595174 (Fla. Ct. App. 1996).

Opinions

HARRIS, Judge.

Henry Lewis Astrop accompanied his girlfriend, Katherine J. Graham, to the home of Janine Vandenberg. They were both invited into the home. When Astrop was ready to leave, Graham wasn’t. Astrop took her by the arm and attempted to pull her from the house. Vandenberg, brandishing two knives, convinced Astrop to leave without Graham. Astrop decided to return. He entered by breaking a window. He threatened to kill Graham if she didn’t go with him. The police were called and Astrop was arrested.

The State charged Astrop with burglary of a dwelling with an assault and, in addition, with a separate charge of assault. The information alleges insufficient facts to permit a distinction between the two alleged assaults. Astrop was convicted of both. We reverse the misdemeanor assault conviction.

Astrop claims that the double conviction for assault was improper because the second assault charge was subsumed in the conviction for burglary of a dwelling with an assault. The State urges that the attempt to forcibly remove Graham from the house could constitute a separate assault. But Graham did not testify that Astrop made any threats, by word or deed, to do violence to her during this period. Astrop merely pulled Graham by the arm toward the kitchen door. Perhaps a battery was proved, but it wasn’t charged. And this earlier incident [1154]*1154could not constitute the burglar “with an assault” charge because it occurred while Astrop was in the home by invitation. Therefore, the separate assault conviction could only have been based on the same threatening conduct that was the basis for enhancing the burglary charge. Even so, it is possible to be lawfully twice convicted for the same conduct if two separate crimes are committed by such conduct.

In State v. Enmund, 476 So.2d 165, (Fla.1985), our supreme court upheld separate sentences for both a felony murder and the qualifying felony by finding that our legislature intended in a single trial situation, multiple convictions and punishments unless one of the offenses was a necessarily lesser included offense of the other. Applying our codified version of Blockburger,1 our supreme court determined that the qualifying felony is not a lesser included offense of the felony murder based on it. Like Enmund, our case involves a single trial. And a separate charge for assault is to the charge of burglary with an assault what a separate charge for the independent qualifying felony is to the charge of felony murder. In both cases, the qualifying offense must be proved in order for the greater offense (felony murder) or the enhanced offense (burglary with an assault) to be proved.

Because the Enmund analysis is based on the construction of our felony murder statute (in particular, what the elements of felony murder are), it is not dispositive of this case. In United States v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688, 113 S.Ct. 2849, 125 L.Ed.2d 556 (1993), the United States Supreme Court, in applying its Blockburger standard, held that all of the elements of each of the felonies that could serve as a qualifying felony to a felony murder charge are incorporated into the felony murder statute insofar as a Blockburger analysis is concerned. It specifically held:

Dixon’s release form specified that he was not to commit “any criminal offense,” and warned that any violation of the conditions of release would subject him “to revocation of release, an order of detention, and prosecution for contempt of court.”
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The Dixon court order incorporated the entire governing criminal code in the same manner as the Harris felony-murder statute incorporated the several enumerated felonies. Here, as in Harris, the underlying substantive criminal offense is “a species of lesser-included offense.”

U.S. v. Dixon, 509 U.S. at 691, 698, 113 S.Ct. at 2853, 2857. Chief Justice Rehnquist, in his concurring and dissenting opinion, made this point even clearer:

Though the felony-murder statute in Harris did not require proof of armed robbery, it did include as an element of proof that the defendant was engaged in the commission of some felony. Harris v. State, 555 P.2d 76, 80 (Okla.Crim.App.1976). We construed this generic reference to some felony as incorporating the statutory elements of the various felonies upon which a felony-murder conviction could rest.

U.S. v. Dixon, 509 U.S. at 717, 113 S.Ct. at 2867.

However, our supreme court in Enmund construed our codified version of Blockburger differently. Justice Shaw, in explaining his reasoning, stated that the elements of none of the felonies referred to in our felony murder statute are incorporated into our felony murder statute. He stated:

Under the felony murder rule, the only element of the predicate felony which is relevant to first-degree felony murder is the intent which is shared by the two offenses. Through the doctrine of constructive malice, the intent to commit the felony is substituted for the intent to commit the murder.
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This proposition can be seen most clearly by recognizing that an attempted felony can also be a predicate for a felony murder: the only predicate proof required is that a felony was intended; there is no [1155]*1155requirement to prove the non-intent elements of the felony.

Enmund, 476 So.2d at 168,169.

Since the Enmund holding is based on the principle that a Blockburger analysis considers only the elements of the offenses involved and not the proof or pleadings, the determination of what the elements of felony murder are is critical in deciding whether one crime is subsumed by another.

The Enmund reasoning for its determination that the elements of a qualifying felony are not incorporated within the felony murder statute is very similar to the reasoning of the Oklahoma Criminal Court of Appeals in Harris v. State, 555 P.2d 76, 80-81 (Okl.Cr.1976):

In the case at bar the two offenses complained of, felony murder and robbery with firearms, are separate and distinct. The essential elements of robbery with firearms are: a wrongful taking of personal property in the possession of another from his person or presence against his will, by means of force or fear, and with the use of firearms. (Statutory citation omitted.) The defendant was also convicted of murder, the elements of which are: homicide ... perpetrated by a person engaged in the commission of any felony.

But this reasoning was specifically rejected on appeal by the Supreme Court of the United States in Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 97 S.Ct. 2912, 53 L.Ed.2d 1054 (1977) (per curiam):

When, as here, conviction of a greater crime, murder, cannot be had without conviction of the lesser crime, robbery with firearms, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars prosecution of the lesser crime after conviction of the greater one ... cf. Brown v.

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Bluebook (online)
682 So. 2d 1153, 1996 Fla. App. LEXIS 10873, 1996 WL 595174, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/astrop-v-state-fladistctapp-1996.