DENNIS LAMAR BROUGHTON, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 1st DCA | 1988-07-19
No. BO-201
SMITH, C.J., and ERVIN, J., concur.
528 So. 2d 1241 Florida District Court of Appeal, First District (1988) Positive Treatment
Cited by 10 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

Appellant Broughton was convicted of possession of burglary tools, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony after police found items in his vehicle. The appellate court reversed all three convictions, finding insufficient evidence that Broughton possessed burglary tools with intent to use them as such, and insufficient evidence he knew about or controlled the firearm found under the vehicle.


Holding

The court reversed all three convictions. The evidence was insufficient to establish possession of burglary tools because appellant was not using or attempting to use the items as burglary tools. The conviction for possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony necessarily failed because the underlying felony (burglary tools possession) was unsupported. The conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, based on circumstantial evidence, could not stand because the State failed to present any evidence contradicting appellant's reasonable hypothesis of innocence that his codefendant possessed and hid the gun without his knowledge.


Headnotes

[1] Possession of burglary tools requires proof that the items were being used or intended to be used as burglary tools, not merely that common household items were present.

[2] A conviction based solely on circumstantial evidence cannot be sustained if the evidence is inconsistent with the defendant's reasonable hypothesis of innocence.

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Key Quotes

“Burglary tools are not contraband per se, and it is only the actual possession of burglary tools along with the criminal intent or usage that constitutes a punishable offense.”

Establishes that simple possession of tools is insufficient; criminal intent and intended use are required elements

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Facts & Procedural History

On February 4, 1986, police observed Broughton and a codefendant driving behind closed commercial buildings. When police stopped the vehicle, officers…

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Opinion of the Court
BOOTH, Judge.

BOOTH, Judge.

Pursuant to appellant’s motion for rehearing and notice of supplemental authority citing Stemm v. State, 523 So. 2d 760 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988), our original opinion is withdrawn and the following is substituted.

This cause is before us on appeal from an order convicting appellant of possession of burglary tools, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. We reverse as to all three convictions.

Appellant has raised three issues: (1) whether the trial court erred in not granting appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, in that the State failed to demonstrate appellant had knowledge of a firearm; (2) whether the trial court erred in not directing a verdict of acquittal on the charge of possession of burglary tools and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon on the State’s theory that appellant was a principal to the crimes; and (3) whether the trial court erred in denying appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal for possession of burglary tools for the State’s failure to show that common household items were being used to break into a structure.

Around 10:00 p.m. on February 4, 1986, Police Officer Betz observed appellant and codefendant drive a vehicle behind several commercial buildings. Because the businesses were closed and Officer Betz had worked burglaries in the area, he decided to investigate.

Officer Betz pulled in the driveway, blocked the exit, called for backup officers, turned on his vehicle spotlight, and ordered the occupants out of the car. During this time, his spotlight failed. The individuals in the car did not exit immediately. Instead, Officer Betz observed a lot of move ment in the front seat. He stated there were “heads ducking out of the way and everything_ His head and his [appellant’s] upper torso, they were going back and forth.” Approximately 30 to 35 seconds later, appellant came out of the car; then the passenger exited.

Officer Warren arrived as a backup. The original purpose of the stop was to make a field interrogation of suspicious behavior. As Officer Betz approached the driver’s side, he observed items he characterized as “burglary tools” and “armed robbery tools.”

Officer Betz found in the car a pair of bolt cutters, two pair of gloves, a green ski mask, a flashlight, and a green jacket. As he walked around the car, he noticed the passenger door slightly ajar, and underneath the car he found a fully loaded .45 firearm. Officer Betz testified the firearm was brand new, had no scratches on it, and had no humidity built up even though the day had been a humid one. Officer Betz had driven his patrol car (backwards and forwards) over the area where the gun had been found, and he had not seen or run over the weapon before he stopped appellant. Officer Betz concluded that, because of the movement observed when he first stopped the individuals and his finding of the door ajar, the weapon had been slid out and placed under the car although he never saw who did it. Officer Betz then requested Officer Warren to put the suspects on the ground, and subsequently an arrest ensued.

Officer Betz testified that the driver of the vehicle in question (appellant) had not disobeyed any traffic laws. Although he attempted to do a fingerprint analysis on the gun, everything was smudged.

We will address issue three first, as it makes portions of issues one and two moot.

In Foster v. State, 286 So. 2d 549, 551 (Fla.1973), the Supreme Court of Florida stated:

An examination of the burglary tool statute reveals that the potential for any number of common household tools to be “illegal” unless the statute is construed, in an appropriate case, such as this, to require that for such a tool to be “illegal,” it must be used as a burglary tool — thus becoming a facet of the burglary, breaking and entering transaction, etc.

Again, in State v. Thomas, 362 So. 2d 1348, 1350 (Fla.1978), the Supreme Court of Florida stated:

Burglary tools are not contraband per se, and it is only the actual possession of burglary tools along with the criminal intent or usage that constitutes a punishable offense. Possession of otherwise “innocent” items coupled with the use or intended use of such tools in a burglary, is unlawful. No crime is committed until the items are in the actual or constructive possession of a person who is using or attempting to use the objects as bur- ' glary tools.

Applying the case law to the facts in this case, we conclude that the evidence is insufficient to establish a prima facie case of possessing burglary tools. The tools appellant was charged with possessing were a set of bolt cutters, a flashlight, a ski mask, and a glove. Appellant was not using, nor was he attempting to use, the objects in question as burglary tools.

Since the evidence is insufficient to establish a prima facie case of possessing burglary tools, we must also reverse appellant’s conviction of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The felony appellant was charged with committing was the possession of burglary tools.

Finally, we vacate appellant’s conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The conviction in this case was based upon circumstantial evidence. A conviction based upon circumstantial evidence cannot be sustained unless the evidence is inconsistent with the defendant’s reasonable hypothesis of innocence. See Buenoano v. State, 478 So. 2d 387 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985), and Fox v. State, 469 So. 2d 800 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985). Sub judice, appellant’s hypothesis of innocence was that his codefendant possessed the gun, appellant did not know it, and the codefendant hid the gun under the car without appellant’s knowledge. Although the special standard governing sufficiency of circumstantial evidence does not require the trier of fact to believe the defense witnesses regarding facts on which the State has presented contrary testimony, a careful review of the record has failed to disclose any direct contradiction of any part of appellant’s story. Because the State failed to produce even a modicum of evidence contradicting any part of the theory appellant argued to the jury, see Stemm, supra at 761, the State’s evidence was insufficient for the jury to infer that appellant knew about the weapon, controlled it, or helped his codefendant conceal it.

Accordingly, the trial court erred in denying appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal, and the case is remanded with instructions to discharge appellant.

SMITH, C.J., and ERVIN, J., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Williams v. State, 529 So. 2d 345 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988)
    …onable hypothesis of innocence. Similar terminology in the cases cited1 is limited by reference to the defendant’s theories or hypotheses of innocence. These are the reasonable hypotheses of innocence that the State must exclude. Broughton v. State, 528 So. 2d 1241 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988); Stemm v. State, 523 So. 2d 760 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988). In the instant case, the specific rules governing proof of constructive [*349] possession control,2 as held in Stemm, supra at pages 761-762: Since the State did not rebut app…
  • Burke v. State, 672 So. 2d 829 (Fla. 1st DCA 1995)
    …tal error that may be addressed by an appellate court, even though it was not addressed in the lower tribunal. See Troedel v. State, 462 So. 2d 392, 399 (Fla.1984). See also K.A.N. v. State, 582 So. 2d 57, 59 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991); Broughton v. State, 528 So. 2d 1241, 1243 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988). As support for the contention that this court ought not view the state’s failure to prove an essential element of the crime charged as fundamental error, the state maintains the supreme court’s decision in Troedel “was an…
  • Strachn v. State, 661 So. 2d 1255 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995)
    …uilt on this offense; the trial court erred in denying the defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal on this charge. See Thomas v. State, 531 So. 2d 708, 709 (Fla.1988); Hierro v. State, 608 So. 2d 912, 915 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992); Broughton v. State, 528 So. 2d 1241, 1243 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988). As to the attempted burglary charge, however, evidence was adduced below that the defendant unsuccessfully attempted to enter one of the Howard Johnson motel rooms late one night, and that after his arrest he belatedly ad…

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