JAMES WYATT MCGRIFF, APPELLANT,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING

PER CURIAM.

We grant Appellee’s motion for rehearing in part and substitute this opinion in place of our original opinion.

Appellant shot and killed a man during an argument over a backyard dice game in 2011. He was convicted of three felonies1 and sentenced to concurrent prison terms, the longest of which is 30 years. He raises four issues in this direct appeal, and we find merit in two.

First, we agree with Appellant that the trial court abused its discretion when it instructed the jury that “if [Appellant] was engaged in an unlawful activity, [his] use of deadly force was not justified if he could have reasonably and safely avoided the use of deadly force by retreating.” This was an incorrect statement of then-existing law. Section 776.012(1), Florida Statutes (2010) — the sole statute on which Appellant’s self-defense claim was based— provided that “a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if [h]e ... reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself .. or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony” (emphasis added), and this court held in Garrett v. State, 148 So.3d 466, 471 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014), that “[t]he fact that [the defendant] was a convicted felon in unlawful possession of a firearm did not apply to the jury’s consideration of whether [he] had a duty to retreat under section 776.012(1).” Accord Dorsey v. State, 149 So.3d 144, 147 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014) (Dorsey II); Rios v. State, 143 So.3d 1167, 1169-70 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014); Hardison v. State, 138 So.3d 1130, 1134 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014);2 see also Hill v. State, 143 So.3d 981, 984 (Fla. 4th DCA *1692014) (en banc) (holding that the defense provided in section 776.012(1) is available to persons engaged in an unlawful activity and explaining that “[t]he addition of the words ‘and does not have a duty to retreat’ to section 776.012 had the effect of abrogating the common law duty to retreat before using deadly force outside the home under the circumstances indicated therein”); Little v. State, 111 So.3d 214, 219-22 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013) (holding that a defendant engaged in an unlawful activity when he or she uses force cannot obtain immunity from prosecution based on section 776.013(3), but he or she can obtain immunity based on section 776.012(1)). This error was preserved below and was not harmless because the erroneous instruction effectively eliminated Appellant’s sole defense and was emphasized several times by the prosecutor during closing argument.3

Second, we agree with Appellant that the trial court abused its discretion when it “re-joined”4 count II (possession of a firearm by a convicted felon) with the other charges for purposes of trial. The trial court’s decision to re-join count II was based on its determination that Appellant’s status as a convicted felon in possession of a firearm was relevant to Appellant’s claim of self-defense because his duty to retreat or not turned on whether he was engaged in an unlawful activity. However, as the cases cited above now make clear, it was irrelevant whether Appellant was ehgaged in an unlawful activity when he used the force at issue because his self-defense claim was based upon section 776.012(1), not section 776.013(3). Accordingly, the trial court should have severed count II from the remaining charges for purposes of trial, See State v. Vazquez, 419 So.2d 1088, 1090 (Fla.1982); Shuler v. State, 929 So.2d 645 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006); Monson v. State, 627 So.2d 1301, 1302 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993).

For these reasons, we reverse Appellant’s judgment and sentence on counts I (manslaughter) and III (carrying a concealed firearm) and remand for a new trial on those counts consistent with this opinion. We affirm Appellant’s judgment and sentence on count II (possession of a firearm by a Convicted felon). See Vazquez, 419 So.2d at 1091 (“While the proof of Vazquez’ prior conviction unfairly prejudiced his defense to the [murder and unlawful display of a firearm] counts, that proof was both relevant and admissible and not unfairly prejudicial in the firearm possession count.”).

*170AFFIRMED in part; REVERSED and REMANDED for a new trial in part.

BENTON, WETHERELL, and SWANSON, JJ., concur.