Case Name: Robert MORRIS, Petitioner, v. The STATE of Florida, Respondent
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2004-04-14
Citations: 869 So. 2d 1264
Docket Number: No. 3D03-2318
Parties: Robert MORRIS, Petitioner, v. The STATE of Florida, Respondent.
Judges: Before COPE, GREEN and FLETCHER, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 869
Pages: 1264–1269

Head Matter:
Robert MORRIS, Petitioner, v. The STATE of Florida, Respondent.
No. 3D03-2318.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
April 14, 2004.
Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender, and Lisa Walsh, Assistant Public Defender, for petitioner.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, and Jill K. Traína, Assistant Attorney General, for respondent.
Before COPE, GREEN and FLETCHER, JJ.

Opinion:
COPE, J.
Robert Morris petitions for a writ of prohibition by which he seeks to bar his trial on the charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The petition is well taken and we grant it.
I.
The defendant was charged with armed robbery, grand theft, attempted armed robbery, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Count four, the firearm possession count, was severed prior to trial.
The case proceeded to trial on the charges of armed robbery, attempted armed robbery, and grand theft. The only issue at trial was whether the defendant had been correctly identified as the perpetrator of the holdup.
The two victims testified that they were walking in the Coconut Grove area of Miami when the defendant robbed them at gunpoint. The defense acknowledged that the victims had been robbed, but argued that the defendant was not the perpetrator. The defense emphasized the differences between the defendant's actual appearance and the description given by victims at the time of the crime; the fact that no physical evidence connected him to the crime; and the fact that the defendant was not arrested until a week after the crime, not contemporaneously. The jury acquitted the defendant.
The State now seeks to proceed to trial against the defendant on the severed charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The defendant moved to dismiss, arguing that the State is collaterally estopped from trying the severed count where the jury in the first trial necessarily made a finding that the defendant did not commit the crimes. The trial court denied the motion and this petition followed.
II.
We conclude that the petition should have been granted and that the case is controlled by Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970). In Ashe, three or four perpetrators robbed six participants in a poker game in the basement of a home. The State prosecuted Ashe for robbing victim number one. The identification evidence was weak, as the robbers had worn masks. The jury acquitted Ashe of robbing victim number one. The State then tried Ashe for the robbery of victim number two and convicted him.
The United States Supreme Court ruled that collateral estoppel barred the prosecution of Ashe for the robbery of victim number two. The Court held that the concept of collateral estoppel "is embodied in the Fifth Amendment guarantee against double . jeopardy." 397 U.S. at 445, 90 S.Ct. 1189. The Court stated:
[T]he record is utterly devoid of any indication that the first jury could rationally have found that an armed robbery had not occurred, or that [victim number one] had not been a victim of that robbery. The single rationally conceivable issue in dispute before the jury was whether the petitioner had been one of the robbers. And the jury by its verdict found that he had not. The federal rule of law, therefore, would make a second prosecution for the robbery of [victim number two] wholly impermissible.
Id.
That logic is directly applicable here. The only issue in the first trial of this defendant was whether the' defendant had robbed the two victims. By its verdict the jury found that the defendant was not the robber. This finding bars the second prosecution, where that second prosecution is based on the claim that the defendant possessed a firearm during the very same armed robbery. See id.; see also Gragg v. State, 429 So.2d 1204, 1206-08 (Fla.1983); State v. Short, 513 So.2d 679, 681-82 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987).
The State argues that the decision in State v. Harwood, 800 So.2d 308 (Fla. 3d DCA 2001), supports the ruling below, but that is not so. In Harwood the defendant was charged with armed robbery and other offenses at his first trial, at which he was acquitted. Id. at 308. Thereafter the State proceeded against the defendant on the severed count of unlawful possession of a firearm by violent career criminal.
We held that collateral estoppel did not bar the second prosecution, based on the pertinent facts of that case. An examination of the briefs in Harwood reveals that in the first prosecution, the victims testified that they were robbed by the defendant in their home at gunpoint. The defendant testified that there was an encounter between him and the victims in their home, but that the victims owed him money and gave him money and property voluntarily. The jury acquitted the defendant. Against that factual background, we said collateral estoppel did "not bar prosecution of the severed count because the issue of whether the defendant possessed a firearm was not necessarily determined by the jury. The jury's decision to acquit the defendant could have been grounded on an issue other than whether the defendant possessed a firearm during the incident." Id. at 309 (citation omitted). Both sides in Harwood agreed that there was an encounter between the victims and the defendant but disagreed on what happened during the encounter. The acquittal was not dispositive of whether the defendant possessed a firearm during the encounter.
Here by contrast, the jury's previous acquittal of the defendant necessarily concluded that no encounter occurred between defendant and the victims. That conclusion is dispositive of the firearm charge in this case.
For the stated reasons, the petition for writ of prohibition is granted.
FLETCHER, J., concurs.
. The defense closing argument included:
Robert Morris did not commit the crime that he has been accused of.
. [W]hat happened to [the victims] was horrible. That is not an issue in this case. That fact is not in dispute, that they were violently robbed.... The only issue in this case is who is responsible for that.
TR. 253-55.