JOHN FLOWERS AND FRED ANDREWS, PLAINTIFFS IN ERROR,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, DEFENDANT IN ERROR
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Flowers and Andrews were convicted of automobile larceny based on circumstantial evidence that they were found in possession of a stolen vehicle with the actual thief. The Florida Supreme Court reversed, holding that the defendants' uncontradicted explanation—that the actual thief invited them on a trip under false pretenses—was entirely plausible and that the evidence was legally insufficient to support conviction.
The conviction must be reversed because the uncontradicted evidence showed that Flowers and Andrews were not present when the automobile was stolen and had nothing to do with the act of initial asportation. Their explanation was entirely plausible and reasonable, and the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence to prove they were guilty of larceny.
“The explanation of the defendants Flowers and Andréws is entirely plausible and reasonable and consistent with the innocence of each of them so far as the act of larceny is concerned.”
Establishes that the defendants' account was credible and supported by evidence
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceClyde Jones stole an automobile and invited Flowers and Andrews to accompany him to Kentucky to look for work, telling them the car belonged to his br…
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In this ease the plaintiffs in error, defendants in the court below, were convicted of the larceny of an automobile. The automobile was found in the. possession of Flowers. One Clyde Jones was indicted with these defendants. Clyde J ones testified that he stole the automobile himself and later invited Flowers and Andrews to go with him to Kentucky to look for work; that he told them the automobile belonged to his brother. They went to Kentucky, found no work and returning were arrested in Way cross, Georgia. When the police in Way cross first got in contact with the automobile Flowers was driving it. He took the police to a place where they found Jones and Andrews. The State relies upon the circumstance that the, three defendants, Jones, Flowers and Andrews, left Jacksonville together with a stolen automobile and w;ere later found in possession of the same automobile in Wayeross, Georgia, to convict Flowers and Andrews.
For some reason not explained in the record, the case was nol prossed as to Jones, although he testified pos*687itively that he stole the automobile from the place where the owner had left it and that after driving it around to several different places in Jacksonville to attend to his private affairs, the nature of which he declined to divulge, he found the other two men at a dance hall and invited them to go with him on the trip. Both Flowers and Andrews corroborated this statement and there was no evidence that they ever exercised an act of possession or control over the automobile which was inconsistent with the truth of this statement.
This is not a case where conflicting evidence is reviewed, but it is a case in which we are called upon to determine whether or not such evidence as w'as adduced was sufficient to constitute the basis of the judgment of conviction against the defendants.
The explanation of the defendants Flowers and Andréws is entirely plausible and reasonable and consistent with the innocence of each of them so far as the act of larceny is concerned. The uncontradieted evidence is that neither Andrews nor Flowers was present when the automobile was stolen and that they had nothing to do with the act of initial asportation.
It is the province of a jury to reconcile conflicting evidence but where there is no conflict in the evidence a jury is not authorized to disregard the direct and positive evidence which shows that the defendants are not guilty of the offense charged.
The judgment should be reversed and it is so ordered.
Eeversed.
Ellis and Brown, J.J., concur.
Whitfield, P.J., and Terrell and Davis, J.J., concur in the opinion and judgment.
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Duncanson v. Serv. First, Inc., 157 So. 2d 696 (Fla. 3d DCA 1963)…ac v. Zima, 96 Kan. 752, 153 P. 500 (1915); Russell v. O’Connor, 120 Minn. 66, 139 N.W. 148 (1912); Hamacher v. Tumy, supra. . See Bittner v. Walsh, Fla.App.1961, 132 So. 2d 799. . See Vilas v. Vilas, 153 Fla. 102, 13 So. 2d 807; Flowers v. State, 106 Fla. 686, 143 So. 612; Montgomery v. State, 55 Fla. 97, 45 So. 879; Levy v. Cox, 22 Fla. 546 (1886); Harris v. State, Fla.App.1958, 104 So. 2d 739.…
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State v. Fernandez, 526 So. 2d 192 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988)…ot credible,” he was not free to do so. A court must accept evidence which, like the material testimony of the police officers, is neither impeached, discredited, controverted, contradictory within itself, or physically impossible. Flowers v. State, 106 Fla. 686, 143 So. 612 (1932); Brannen v. State, 94 Fla. 656, 114 So. 429 (1927); Harris v. State, 104 So. 2d 739 (Fla. 2d DCA 1958); see State v. Navarro, 464 So. 2d 137 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984). This rule is plainly applicable here. Nothing justifies a factual fi…
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Britts v. State, 158 Fla. 839 (Fla. 1947)…o stand on but a practical confession of murder in the first degree; but the jury evidently was not satisfied with the sufficiency of the evidence offered by the State to justify a verdict of murder in the first degree.” In Flowers et al. v. State, 106 Fla. 686, 143 So. 612, we held: “It is the province of a jury to reconcile conflicting evidence but where there is no conflict in the evidence a jury is not authorized to disregard the direct and ^positive evidence which shows that the defendants are not gu…
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