M.P., a Juvenile v. State

• Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida
• Decided: July 22, 2015
• Docket: 14-2370
• Status: Published

Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed July 22, 2015. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

No. 3D14-2370 Lower Tribunal No. 13-4131 ________________

M.P., a juvenile, Appellant,

vs.

The State of Florida, Appellee.

An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Orlando A. Prescott, Judge.

Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Brian L. Ellison, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Sandra Lipman, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Before WELLS, EMAS and LOGUE, JJ.

PER CURIAM. We affirm the trial court’s determination, following an adjudicatory hearing,

that M.P. had committed the delinquent act of uttering a forged instrument.

Regardless of whether the special standard of review is limited in its application to

cases in which the proof of every element is wholly circumstantial, or applies more

broadly to cases in which proof of any one element is wholly circumstantial1, we

conclude that the State presented sufficient evidence that was inconsistent with the

hypothesis of innocence claimed by M.P. The trial court therefore properly denied

the motion for judgment of dismissal and, as the factfinder, properly determined

that the evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt that M.P. committed the

delinquent act.

The adjudicatory order and disposition order are affirmed.

1 We will not recount the history of the development, demise, and resurrection of the special standard of review in circumstantial evidence cases. For a thorough analysis of this standard and its sometimes-inconsistent application by Florida appellate courts, see Knight v. State, 107 So. 3d 449 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013), review granted 151 So. 3d 1226 (Fla. 2014).