Finley v. State

139 So. 3d 940, 2014 WL 2197629, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 8088
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMay 28, 2014
DocketNo. 4D12-4168
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 139 So. 3d 940 (Finley 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
Finley v. State, 139 So. 3d 940, 2014 WL 2197629, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 8088 (Fla. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Karl Alan Finley appeals the judgment and sentence imposed after a jury found him guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm or ammunition. He argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal because the State failed to provide sufficient evidence to deny the motion. We agree.

Police responded to Finley’s apartment in response to a reported burglary. Finley’s downstairs neighbor called the police when he heard someone walking in Finley’s apartment, and then saw a man, whom he did not recognize, carrying items and dropping change in the parking lot.

Officer M. responded to the call. While on his way to Finley’s apartment, Officer M. saw the suspect’s vehicle and pulled him over. Officer M. left the suspect with other responding officers and proceeded to Finley’s apartment. Finley’s neighbor identified the suspect as the person he saw leaving Finley’s apartment.

Once Officer M. arrived at Finley’s apartment, he was immediately hit with the strong odor of bleach. Finley’s apartment had been “ransacked,” and bleach had been poured all over the apartment. While investigating Finley’s home, Officer M. found a handgun lying on a box spring left exposed by an overturned mattress.1

Investigators dusted and swabbed the handgun, and the magazine contained within the handgun, for fingerprints and DNA. No fingerprints were found. However, the DNA taken from the handgun and magazine matched Finley’s DNA.

At trial, the investigator who collected Finley’s DNA testified that when she was collecting the DNA from the handgun and magazine, she used two cotton swabs to swab multiple portions of the handgun and the magazine.

A member of the West Palm Beach Police Department’s forensic biology unit also testified. She stated that Finley’s DNA was the only sample she tested against the DNA found on the handgun and weapon (she did not test the sample against the burglary suspect’s DNA), but that there was the presence of a second individual’s DNA found on the handgun. Most notably, when questioned on cross-examination, the forensic witness testified that “secondary transfer” is possible, whereby DNA can be transferred from one object to another, so that a person’s DNA can be detected on both objects without the DNA contributor ever having touched the second object.

At the end of the State’s case-in-chief, Finley moved for a judgment of acquittal, which the trial court denied. The jury found Finley guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm or ammunition as charged in the information. On appeal, Finley argues that the trial court should have granted his motion for judgment of acquittal because the State did not meet its burden to survive sucli a motion. We agree.

“Appellate review of the denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal is de novo.” Burkell v. State, 992 So.2d 848, 851 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) (citations omitted). Additionally, when determining whether the [942]*942State provided enough evidence to survive a motion for judgment of acquittal, the standards are different when the State’s case against a defendant is based on wholly circumstantial evidence, and when the State’s case is based on direct evidence or a mixture of direct and circumstantial evidence. See Boyd v. State, 910 So.2d 167, 180 (Fla.2005) (“[A] special standard of review applies when a case is based wholly on circumstantial evidence.”) (citation omitted). Therefore, we first determine whether the State’s case against Finley was wholly circumstantial.

“Circumstantial evidence is proof of certain facts and circumstances from which the [jury] may infer that the ultimate facts in dispute existed or did not exist.” Horne v. State, 997 So.2d 1262, 1265 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, “[c]ircumstantial evidence is evidence which involves an additional inference to prove a material fact; e.g, ‘I saw A flee the scene.’ ” Charles W. Ehrh-hardt, Florida Evidence (2012 ed.), S. 401.1 at 137. On the other hand, “[d]irect evidence is evidence which requires only the inference that what the witness said is true to prove a material fact; e.g., T saw A shootB.’” Id.

We determine that the State’s case against Finley was wholly circumstantial. The evidence that the State provided was that a handgun was found in Finley’s apartment and that Finley’s DNA was on the handgun and magazine. As for the DNA evidence, the State cites to Van Poyck v. State, 908 So.2d 326, 328 (Fla.2005), and argues that the Florida Supreme Court has classified DNA evidence as direct evidence. Although our supreme court did refer to DNA evidence as direct evidence in Van Poyck, based on other cases handed down by our supreme court, this is not necessarily a bright line rule, and instead, depends on what the DNA testing and evidence is being used to prove. Id.

For example, in Ballard v. State, 923 So.2d 475, 476 (Fla.2006), a Florida Supreme Court case decided one year after Van Poyck, the Court reversed the defendant’s convictions for two counts of first-degree murder and robbery. In Ballard, the only evidence the State presented in support of the defendant’s guilt was the defendant’s fingerprint on a bed frame at the crime scene, and a hair that allegedly matched the DNA profile of the defendant on one of the victims. Id. at 479-80. The Court stated that “this [wa]s a case based upon purely circumstantial evidence.” Id. at 482. This was partially based on the fact “that the State presented no direct evidence of when the hair and fingerprint were left or how they came to be left in their locations.” Id. at 483.

Additionally, in the recent case of Miller v. State, 107 So.3d 498, 499 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013), the Second District reversed a trial court’s denial of the defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal on the charge of felon in possession of a firearm. The facts in Miller were similar to the facts in the instant case, where a gun was found in the defendant’s apartment underneath a mattress on a box spring. Id. The Second District classified the DNA evidence from the defendant on the gun as “circumstantial” because “the State’s only ordinance of when Miller possessed the gun... is entirely circumstantial.” Id. at 501.

Here, the DNA evidence was used to prove that Finley “possessed” the weapon, either actually or constructively. Similar to Ballard, in the instant case, the State’s witness testified that she could not determine when the DNA was put on the gun. Even more significantly, she testified that secondary DNA transfer was possible; where one object, containing Finley’s DNA, could have rubbed against the hand[943]*943gun, and without Finley ever having touched the handgun, his DNA could still be present. Since the handgun was found on Finley’s box spring, DNA present on the box spring, or the mattress, before it was overturned, could have transferred onto the handgun and magazine. Therefore, since there are additional inferences needed, that Finley’s DNA was put on the gun by him, and that it was put under the mattress by him, in order to believe that Finley possessed the handgun, the DNA evidence as presented in this case was circumstantial.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
139 So. 3d 940, 2014 WL 2197629, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 8088, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/finley-v-state-fladistctapp-2014.