Case ID: so2d_528/html/0998-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM. FERGUSON, Judge", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Roy George WHITCRAFT, III, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
    No. 87-232.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
    Aug. 2, 1988.
    Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Robert Kalter, Sp. Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.
    Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Margarita Muina Febres, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
    Before NESBITT, BASKIN and FERGUSON, JJ.
   PER CURIAM.

Roy George Whitcraft, III, challenges his conviction and sentence for second-degree murder. He maintains that 1) the trial court erred in failing to reduce the first-degree murder charge to manslaughter and 2) the trial court erred in failing to define the term “criminal agency” when requested to do so by the jury. We find no merit in Whitcraft’s contentions and affirm. Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.410, 3.420; see Spence v. State, 515 So.2d 312 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987); Larsen v. State, 485 So.2d 1372 (Fla. 1st DCA), aff'd, 492 So.2d 1333 (Fla.1986); Parker v. State, 336 So.2d 426 (Fla. 1st DCA), appeal and cert. dismissed, 341 So.2d 292 (Fla.1976).

Affirmed.

NESBITT and BASKIN, JJ., concur.

FERGUSON, Judge

(concurring).

There are two reasons why a failure to define criminal agency in this case was not erroneous: (1) on the evidence the jury error. could have found that the defendant was the principal in the perpetration of the brutal homicide, and (2) the defendant rejected the court’s offer to give a clear and concise definition of agency from Black’s Law Dictionary on grounds that “examples” of such agency were not included in the definition. Giving “examples” of agency was certain to create confusion and possibly 
      
      . Initially the court offered to give the following definition:
      Agency includes every relation in which one person acts for or represents another by the latter’s authority.