CHARLES EDWARD BOOTH, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Booth was convicted of two robberies and two assaults with intent to commit murder in the second degree arising from attacks on a convenience store manager and a patron. The court affirmed separate consecutive sentences for each offense, rejecting the argument that the crimes were merely different aspects of a single criminal transaction.
The court held that Booth's assault on the store manager and her robbery were separately punishable because the assault continued and intensified after the robbery motive was satisfied, with Booth's object shifting from taking money to taking the victim's life. Similarly, Booth's attempted murder of the patron was independently punishable from the robbery of the patron because the assault was not an essential aspect of the robbery and the two offenses did not have the necessary factual relationship to constitute a single transaction.
[1] Separate sentences may be imposed for offenses that are not different aspects of a single criminal transaction.
[2] An assault that continues and intensifies after a robbery motive is satisfied, with the object shifting from money to life, is separately punishable from the robbery.
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Establishes the holding that the separate offenses are independently punishable crimes rather than aspects of a single transaction.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceBooth robbed and assaulted a convenience store manager, dragging her from the store with threats of death. He then threw her into the path of an oncom…
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SMITH, Judge.
There was no error in Booth’s conviction on two counts of robbery and two counts of assault with intent to commit murder in the second degree. The issue is whether separate sentences were erroneously imposed for offenses which were “different aspects of a single criminal transaction.” Simmons v. State, 151 Fla. 778, 785, 10 So. 2d 436, 439 (1942); Williams v. State, 69 So. 2d 766 (Fla.1954); Cone v. State, 285 So. 2d 12 (Fla.1973).
Booth viciously robbed and assaulted the manager of a convenience store-and then made a similar furious attack on a patron in the parking lot. He was sentenced to a term of imprisonment for fifteen years for assault on the manager, a consecutive term of fifteen years for assault on the patron, a consecutive life sentence for robbery of the manager and another life sentence, to run concurrently with the first, for robbery of the patron.
The circuit judge’s sentencing pattern is entirely in accord with Simmons. The attacks on the manager and on the patron were separately punishable; Booth’s counsel does not contend otherwise. Robinson v. State, 323 So. 2d 630 (Fla.App.1st, 1975). We hold further that Booth’s assault on the store manager was not simply an aspect of the same transaction in which Booth robbed her, and that Booth’s assault to kill the patron was not merely an aspect of robbery of the patron.
There was a temporal distinction in the offenses involving the manager. After completing the robbery for money inside the store, Booth dragged the manager from the place threatening to kill her with his knife. In the parking lot he threw her into the path of the patron’s oncoming car before launching his criminal assault on the patron. Booth is separately punishable for assault on the manager with intent to commit murder in the second degree because his assault continued and intensified after the robbery motive was satisfied, and because his object then was not her money but, evidently, her life. Compare Meeks v. State, 289 So. 2d 479 (Fla.App.3d, 1974); Tarpley v. State, 258 So. 2d 301 (Fla.App.3d, 1972); Wade v. Wainwright, 266 So. 2d 378 (Fla.App.4th, 1972).
Booth attacked the patron with mingled and seemingly contradictory ef forts to kill him and to require him to surrender his wallet. While the patron fought desperately for an opportunity to give up his money, Booth alternately cursed him and demanded his wallet, forcing his blade to the victim’s throat in relentless grappling that made compliance with his demand impossible. He broke off the onslaught when the patron finally was able to produce his money clip. That fact unquestionably attenuates the identification of more than one “transaction.” But clearly Booth’s offenses have not the same necessary factual relationship with each other as, say, those of assault with intent to rape a girl and a simultaneous attempt to have unlawful intercourse with her. Simmons, supra. Neither of Booth’s offenses was a part of the other in the sense that the offense of displaying a firearm in the course of a robbery may be said to be, on the facts, an aspect of a robbery. Cone, supra. While on certain evidence it may be said that “the robbery was committed by use of the firearm contemplated by the charge” and accordingly that “the use of the firearm becomes a facet or phase of the one transaction, to-wit: the robbery,” Hernandez v. State, 278 So. 2d 307, 308 (Fla.App.2d, 1973), Booth’s attempt to kill the patron was independent of and qualitatively other than an effort to force the surrender of his money. Booth’s frenzied attempt to kill was not “essential to the robbery”; it cannot be said that “all the evidence concerning such assault related to the elements of force and fear embraced within the aforesaid robbery.” Hernandez, supra, 278 So. 2d at 308. The Supreme Court found two separately punishable offenses in an accused’s simultaneous possession of two controlled substances. Jenkins v. Wainwright, 322 So. 2d 477 (Fla.1975). That principle is sufficient to deal with the single violent manifestation of Booth’s twofold intention.
AFFIRMED.
BOYER, C. J., and MILLS, J., concur.
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Rosier v. State, 343 So. 2d 972 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977)…ve victims were killed in a single automobile collision, characterized by appellant as a single transaction. We cannot assent. We have upheld separate sentences for violent crimes consecutively directed against , two or more persons. Booth v. State, 332 So. 2d 157 (Fla. 1st DCA 1976). We have also upheld separate sentences for violent crimes simultaneously directed toward two or more persons. Robinson v. State, 323 So. 2d 62 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975). Assuming as appellant argues that the accused there intended tha…
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Douglas v. State, 349 So. 2d 694 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977)…er, we will comment that the sentences under Counts II and III of the information do not violate the single transaction rule because each was a crime against a different person. Robinson v. State, 323 So. 2d 62 (Fla. 1 DCA 1975), and Booth v. State, 332 So. 2d 157 (Fla. 1 DCA 1976). We turn now to the present appeal in which appellant in proper person contends that his sentence under the robbery conviction violates the single transaction rule in that such offense was a part and parcel of the criminal episode…
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Pate v. State, 338 So. 2d 1331 (Fla. 1st DCA 1976)…on that the defendant in that case was charged in one count with robbery [*1332] of one person, but was charged in a different count with aggravated assault upon a second person. In a more factually analogous case, Booth v. State, Fla.App. 1st 1976, 332 So. 2d 157, the defendant was convicted of two counts of robbery and two counts of assault with intent to commit murder in the second degree. In that case, two victims were involved. As to the first victim, a store manager, we held that there was a temporal di…
Previewing 3 of 4 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Cone v. State, 285 So. 2d 12 (Fla. 1973)
- Simmons v. State, 151 Fla. 778 (Fla. 1942)
- Jenkins v. Louie L. Wainwright, 322 So. 2d 477 (Fla. 1975)
- Williams v. State, 69 So. 2d 766 (Fla. 1953)
- Hernandez v. State, 278 So. 2d 307 (Fla. 2d DCA 1973)
- Wade v. Louie L. Wainwright, 266 So. 2d 378 (Fla. 4th DCA 1972)
- Tarpley v. State, 258 So. 2d 301 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972)
- Meeks v. State, 289 So. 2d 479 (Fla. 3d DCA 1974)
- Robinson v. State, 323 So. 2d 630 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975)