NELSENN SIMON, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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On remand from the Florida Supreme Court, the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed Simon's second-degree murder conviction due to a fundamentally erroneous jury instruction on the lesser included offense of manslaughter by act, following the Supreme Court's decision in Haygood v. State.
The trial court fundamentally erred in giving the standard jury instruction on manslaughter by act because the evidence did not reasonably support a finding that the death occurred due to culpable negligence, and this error could not be cured by the culpable negligence instruction given the nature of the offense and evidence presented.
[1] A jury instruction on manslaughter by act is fundamentally erroneous if it includes the same intent element as the greater offense of second-degree murder.
[2] Giving a manslaughter by culpable negligence instruction does not cure a fundamental error in giving an erroneous manslaughter by act instruction when the evidence suppor…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“that giving the manslaughter by culpable negligence instruction does not cure the fundamental error in giving the erroneous manslaughter by act instruction where the defendant is convicted of an offense not more than one step removed from manslaughter and the evidence supports a finding of manslaughter by act, but does not reasonably support a finding that the death occurred due to the culpable negligence of the defendant.”
The Supreme Court's holding in Haygood that established the new standard for evaluating jury instructions on lesser included offenses
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceNelsenn Simon was convicted of second-degree murder. One witness testified that the victim said to the defendant, 'Whenever you saw me, you would figh…
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ON REMAND FROM THE FLORIDA SUPREME COURT
The defendant, Nelsenn Simon, appealed from a conviction and sentence for second *217degree murder raising, among other issues, that the trial court gave a fundamentally erroneous jury instruction on the lesser included offense of manslaughter because it included the same intent element of the greater offense of second degree murder. His conviction was affirmed based on this court’s opinion in Singh v. State, 36 So.3d 848 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010). Simon v. State, 38 So.3d 793, 795 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010). In Singh, where the defendant was prosecuted for first degree murder and convicted of the lesser included offense of second degree murder, we held that the trial court did not fundamentally err in giving the standard jury instruction on manslaughter, which required a jury finding that the defendant “intentionally caused the death” of the victim or that the death of the victim “was caused by the culpable negligence” of the defendant. 36 So.3d at 851.
The defendant petitioned for review in the Florida Supreme Court. While the petition was pending, the Florida Supreme Court issued its opinion in Haygood v. State, 109 So.3d 735 (Fla.2013), which effectively quashed our decision in Singh. In Haygood, the Court held:
that giving the manslaughter by culpable negligence instruction does not cure the fundamental error in giving the erroneous manslaughter by act instruction where the defendant is convicted of an offense not more than one step removed from manslaughter and the evidence supports a finding of manslaughter by act, but does not reasonably support a finding that the death occurred due to the culpable negligence of the defendant.
Id. at 743. The Court, by order, then accepted jurisdiction of this case, quashed this court’s opinion, and remanded the matter to this court for reconsideration upon application of Haygood. Simon v. State, SC10-1684, 2015 WL 128294 (Fla. Jan. 7, 2015).
We need not consider supplemental arguments on remand because the evidence introduced at trial leaves no reasonable possibility for a finding “that the death occurred due to the culpable negligence of the defendant.” One witness to the incident testified that the victim said to the defendant, “Whenever you saw me, you would fight with me,” and that the defendant responded by stabbing the victim with a broken bottle. Another witness testified that, days before the incident, the defendant informed him he was planning to kill the victim.
In light of Haygood, we hold that the trial court fundamentally erred in giving the standard jury instruction on manslaughter by act. We reverse and remand for a new trial on the charge of second degree murder.
Reversed and remanded with instructions.
STEVENSON, CIKLIN and GERBER, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Dominique v. State, 171 So. 3d 204 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015)…lpable negligence instruction,’whereas here the evidence arguably supported the accompanying manslaughter by culpable negligence instruction. In [*206] fact, we already have applied that distinction in a recent post-Haygood case. See Simon v. State, 162 So. 3d 216, 217 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015) (“We need not consider supplemental arguments on remand because the evidence introduced at trial leaves no reasonable possibility for a finding that the death occurred due to the culpable negligence of the defendant.”) (inte…
Authorities Cited
- Haygood v. State, 109 So. 3d 735 (Fla. 2013)
- Singh v. State, 36 So. 3d 848 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010)
- Nelsenn Simon v. State, 38 So. 3d 793 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010)