EUGENE LARK, APPELLANT,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 3d DCA | 2010-03-03
No. 3D08-1347
Before COPE, WELLS, and SALTER, JJ.
29 So. 3d 1165 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (2010)

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

Eugene Lark appealed his convictions for armed robbery, fleeing police, and resisting officers. The Florida appellate court affirmed most convictions but reversed one resisting-officer conviction because a jury instruction mistakenly identified the wrong officer, allowing the jury to potentially convict Lark twice for resisting the same officer.


Holding

The court reversed the conviction on count 7 due to the erroneous jury instruction. The court struck Lark's conviction and sentence on count 7 because the instruction combined with the general verdict made it impossible to determine that the jury's guilty verdict was not based on the improper portion of the instruction.


Headnotes

[1] A conviction based on a general verdict must be reversed if an erroneous jury instruction provides a legally insufficient basis for conviction and it is impossible to det…

[2] A defendant may not be convicted twice for the same offense of resisting an officer without violence when jury instructions erroneously identify the officer involved and…

Previewing 2 of 3 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Key Quotes

“the erroneous jury instruction combined with the general verdict effectively permitted the jury to twice find Lark guilty for the same offense of resisting Officer Garcia without violence”

Establishes the core legal error: the jury instruction allowed conviction for the same conduct twice

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

Following a robbery, Lark drove a vehicle in a high-speed chase pursued by two police cars—one driven by Officer Garcia and another by Officers Diaz a…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
WELLS, Judge.

WELLS, Judge.

Eugene Lark appeals his convictions and sentences for one count of strong armed robbery, one count of fleeing a law enforcement officer at high speed, and two counts of resisting an officer without violence, claiming that: (1) the lower court committed reversible error by failing to conduct a Nelson 1 inquiry; (2) the evidence did not establish that the defendant was a principal to robbery; and (3) an erroneous jury instruction allowed the jury to find the defendant guilty twice for the same offense of resisting an officer without violence. We reject Lark’s first two claims without discussion finding that they are without merit. For the reasons that follow, we strike one of the defendant’s *1166convictions for resisting an officer without violence because of an erroneous jury instruction.

The information charged Lark with, in relevant part, one count of resisting Officer Gonzalo Garcia of the Miami Springs Police Department without violence (count 4), and one count of resisting Officers Edwin Diaz and/or Patrick Calvo of the Miami-Dade County Police Department without violence (count 7). The evidence at trial was that, following a robbery, Lark di*ove a vehicle in a high speed chase with two police cars, one driven by Officer Garcia, the other driven by Officers Diaz and Calvo. Officers Garcia and Calvo testified at trial, Officer Diaz did not.

The record reflects that the jury instruction on count 4 for resisting a law enforcement officer without violence correctly identified Officer Garcia as the officer involved in that count. However, the instruction relating to count 7 mistakenly identified Officer Garcia rather than Officer Diaz as one of the officers involved in that charge, asking whether “Lark resisted, obstructed or opposed Gonzalo Garcia and/or Patrick Calvo” without violence. Although this error was brought to the trial court’s attention, and the court agreed to rectify it, the instruction went to the jury with the erroneous substitution of Officer Garcia for Officer Diaz. The jury returned a general verdict finding Lark guilty on both count 4 and 7.

We agree with Lark that the erroneous jury instruction combined with the general verdict effectively permitted the jury to twice find Lark guilty for the same offense of resisting Officer Garcia without violence. See Gaskin v. State, 869 So.2d 646, 647 (Fla. 3d DCA 2004) (finding reversible error where the improper jury instruction provided a legally insufficient basis for a conviction and where the general verdict of guilty as to the charged crime made it impossible to determine that the verdict was not based on the improper portion of the jury instruction). We therefore reverse as to count 7 and, at the State’s suggestion, strike Lark’s conviction and sentence on that count. The remainder of Lark’s convictions and sentences are affirmed.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw