ALVIN POSEY, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Alvin Posey was convicted of robbery, but the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed, finding insufficient evidence to support the conviction. The court held that Posey could only be charged as an accessory after the fact, not as a principal in the robbery.
The evidence was insufficient to sustain the robbery conviction. Posey should have been charged, if at all, as an accessory after the fact under Florida Statute § 776.03, not as a principal in the robbery.
[1] Evidence is insufficient to sustain a robbery conviction when it fails to establish the defendant's participation in the commission of the robbery itself.
[2] A defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal should be granted at the close of the State's case if the evidence presented is insufficient to sustain a conviction.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“the State cannot convict Posey of robbery on no more evidence than this”
Establishes that the evidence was legally insufficient to support a robbery conviction
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceTwo men robbed a convenience store manager in Broward County and fled. Shortly thereafter, police stopped a vehicle driven by Posey with two other occ…
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OWEN, Judge.
. Appellant was convicted of robbery. We conclude that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction and that his motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the State’s case should have been granted.
Two men robbed the manager of a convenience store in Broward County, and fled the scene with the stolen money. A short time later, in the vicinity of the robbery, a vehicle driven by appellant and occupied by two other men was stopped by the police for a traffic violation. At that time the police had been alerted to the robbery and when the occupants of the stopped car got out the police noted that one of them matched the description given of the robbers. The victim was brought to the scene and identified one of the passengers as one of the robbers. A search of the car revealed a gun and money under the driver’s seat. Appellant’s statement to the officers after his arrest was to the effect that he and the other two had been driving around and that he had let them off at the convenience store and when they returned to the car it was the first time that he realized that his companions were involved in a robbery. Both of the occupants of the car had given statements admitting their own participation in the robbery but neither one was inculpatory of appellant. For reasons which we explained in Lockett v. State, 262 So. 2d 253 (4th DCA Fla. 1972), the State cannot convict Posey of robbery on no more evidence than this. He should have been charged, if at all, as an accessory after the fact under Fla.Stat. § 776.03 (1973).
The judgment and sentence is reversed and this cause remanded with directions that appellant be discharged.
Reversed and remanded.
CROSS and DOWNEY, JJ., concur.