Standard Jury Instructions

723 So. 2d 123
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJuly 16, 1998
Docket91815
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

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Bluebook
Standard Jury Instructions, 723 So. 2d 123 (Fla. 1998).

Opinion

723 So.2d 123 (1998)

STANDARD JURY INSTRUCTIONS IN CRIMINAL CASES (97-2).

No. 91815.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 16, 1998.

Honorable Philip J. Padovano, Chair, Supreme Court Committee on Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases, for Petitioner.

William D. Matthewman, Miami, John H. Gutmacher, Orlando, Bob Dillinger, Public Defender, Sixth Judicial Circuit, Clearwater, and Arthur I. Jacobs, General Counsel for Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, Fernandina Beach, Responding.

PER CURIAM.

The Supreme Court Committee on Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases has submitted the following proposed amendments to the Florida Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases:

1. A revised Schedule of Lesser Included Offenses.[1]
2. A New Instruction on Duress or Necessity.
3. A Supplemental Instruction on Penalty Phase Proceedings.
4. An Amended Instruction on Entrapment.
5. An Amended Instruction on False Imprisonment.
6. Amended Instructions Relating to DUI.
7. A New Instruction on Sexual Activity with a Minor.

The foregoing list of proposed amendments was published in The Florida Bar News and comments were received. The Committee considered the comments and revised proposed amendments were published in The Florida Bar News on January 15, 1998. Several new comments were filed with this Court. In addition to some technical changes, the Court on its own motion has modified the proposed instructions as explained below.

First, the word "intentionally" has been added to the first element in the Committee's proposed new instruction on duress and necessity. Second, in the amended instruction on entrapment, the Court has changed the term "police" in the definition of information to "law enforcement." The instruction now reflects that an informant is an agent of law enforcement for the purposes of the entrapment defense.

With these changes, the Court hereby adopts the proposed amendments as set forth in the appendix attached to this opinion and approves them for publication. In doing so, we express no opinion on the correctness of these instructions and remind all interested parties that this approval forecloses neither requesting additional or alternative instructions nor contesting the legal correctness of the new instructions.

Accordingly, the new instructions are appended to this opinion and will be effective on the date this opinion is filed. The new language is indicated by underscoring; deletions are indicated by strike-through type.

It is so ordered.

HARDING, C.J., and OVERTON, SHAW, KOGAN, WELLS, ANSTEAD and PARIENTE, JJ., concur.

APPENDIX

SCHEDULE OF LESSER INCLUDED OFFENSES

COMMENT ON SCHEDULE OF LESSER INCLUDED OFFENSES

One of the difficult problems in instructing a criminal jury is to make certain that it is properly charged with respect to the degrees *124 or categories of guilt that may be applicable to a given crime. The supreme court in Brown v. State, 206 So.2d 377 (Fla.1968) described these categories as follows:

1. Crimes divisible into degrees
2. Attempts to commit offenses
3. Offenses necessarily included in the offense charged
4. Offenses which may or may not be included in the offense charged, depending on the accusatory pleading and the evidence.

Because it is often so difficult to determine these categories, the committee prepared a list of the offenses applicable to each of the crimes for which standard jury instructions had been drafted. At the same time, the committee recommended treating lesser degrees as category 3 or 4 offenses depending on the offense and treating attempts as a category 4 offense, thereby eliminating the first two Brown categories as separate categories. In its opinion dated April 16, 1981, in which it approved the new standard jury instructions, the supreme court also approved the schedule of lesser included offenses and accepted the recommendation of the committee to consolidate the four Brown categories into two categories. The supreme court directed that the four categories should be renumbered and designated as follows:

1. Offenses necessarily included in the offense charged, which will include some lesser degrees of offenses.
2. Offenses which may or may not be included in the offense charged, depending on the accusatory pleading and the evidence, which will include all attempts and some lesser degrees of offenses.

The court also directed that the appropriate Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure be amended to accommodate these changes. The categories of the offenses which appear on the schedule of lesser included offenses have been renumbered and designated according to the supreme court mandate.

In determining the appropriate lesser offenses for inclusion in the table, the committee followed certain guidelines: 1. No offense is deemed to be a lesser offense if it carries the same penalty as the crime under consideration. See Ray v. State, 403 So.2d 956 (Fla.1981); State v. Carpenter, 417 So.2d 986 (Fla.1982).

2. If the definition of the crime includes the attempt or the endeavor to commit the crime, there can be no separate offense of an attempt to commit that crime, e.g., uttering, forgery, grand theft second degree, delivery of controlled substance.
3. Certain crimes do not have attempts, e.g., culpable negligence, extortion, perjury, corruption by threat against public servant, resisting officer with violence, and conspiracy.
4. Except as stated above, attempts to commit crimes generally are included unless the evidence conclusively shows that the charged crime was completed. In such case, attempt should not be instructed.
5. Some statutes provide that the penalty for certain crimes is enhanced if certain events occur during their commission. For example, under F.S. 810.02 burglary is a felony of the first degree if the burglar makes an assault or is armed with explosives or dangerous weapons. If these events do not occur but burglary is committed in a dwelling occupied by human beings, the offense is a felony of the second degree. All other burglaries are felonies of the third degree. Thus, if a defendant is charged with first degree burglary by virtue of having made an assault during the course of the burglary, the jury should be permitted to return a verdict for simple third degree burglary without the enhancement of the assault. In practice, this is similar to the concept of lesser included offenses, but since statutes of this type are couched in terms of enhancement, the schedule does not carry the lower degrees of the offenses proscribed by those statutes as lesser included offenses.
6. Under Knight v. State, 338 So.2d 201 (Fla.1976), felony murder is included within a single indictment count of premeditated murder. Therefore, first degree felony murder should be given if requested by the state and if supported by the evidence, although it is not a lesser included offense.
*125

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