L.A.R., APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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L.A.R. appeals a withhold of adjudication order for burglary of an unoccupied conveyance and petit theft, challenging the sufficiency of fingerprint evidence. The court agreed that fingerprints alone, without proof they were made at the time of the crime, are insufficient to support conviction and reversed the judgment.
No. The court held that since the only evidence implicating L.A.R. were his fingerprints and the state failed to show the prints could only have been made at the time of the crime, the trial court erred in denying the motion for dismissal. Reversal is appropriate.
[1] Fingerprint evidence alone is insufficient to establish guilt for a crime if the State cannot prove the fingerprints could only have been made at the time of the offense.
[2] A conviction based solely on fingerprint evidence found on an item not exclusively possessed by the defendant, and which was accessible to the public prior to the crime,…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“Since the only evidence implicating L.A.R. were his fingerprints found on a bag containing a newspaper that was left in the vehicle by someone other than the victim and the State failed to show that the fingerprints could only have been made at the time of the crime, reversal is appropriate.”
Establishes the court's core holding that fingerprint evidence without temporal connection is insufficient.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceL.A.R. was charged with burglary of an unoccupied conveyance and petit theft. The only evidence implicating L.A.R. were his fingerprints found on a ba…
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L.A.R. appeals the withhold of adjudication and disposition order relating to charges of burglary of an unoccupied conveyance and petit theft. L.A.R. contends that the, trial court erred in denying his motion for dismissal because the fingerprint evidence was insufficiént to establish that he committed the crimes. We agree. Since the only evidence implicating L.A.R. were his fingerprints found on a bag containing a newspaper that was left in the vehicle by someone other than the victim and the State failed to show that the fingerprints could only have been made at the time of the crime, reversal is appropriate. See Hill v. State, 973 So.2d 655, 656 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008) (reversing burglary conviction where “the only evidence implicating [the appellant] were the fingerprints, and the State failed to show that the prints could only have been made at the time of the crime”); Seneca v. State, 760 So.2d 995, 995-6 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000) (holding that “where the only evidence linking appellant to the burglary were his fingerprints on a car battery apparently thrown through the window of the burgled structure” and “the state failed to prove that the fingerprints could only have been made at the time the crime was committed, the trial court erred in denying the motion for judgment of acquittal”); Shores v. State, 756 So.2d 114, 115-16 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000) (holding that where “[t]he only evidence linking [the appellant] to the burglary was one of his fingerprints on a box of ammunition in a drawer which had been ransacked by the burglar,” the evidence was insufficient to sustain a conviction because the ammunition box was accessible to the public at the sporting goods store before being purchased there by the victim).
Reversed and remanded to vacate the dispositions.
KELLY and WALLACE, JJ., Concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Authorities Cited
- Shores v. State, 756 So. 2d 114 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)
- Seneca v. State, 760 So. 2d 995 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)
- Nevels v. State, 973 So. 2d 655 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008)
- Hill v. State, 973 So. 2d 655 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008)