Case Name: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Richard Eugene WILLIAMS, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1971-10-27
Citations: 254 So. 2d 548
Docket Number: No. 70-606
Parties: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Richard Eugene WILLIAMS, Appellee.
Judges: HOBSON, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 254
Pages: 548–555

Head Matter:
STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Richard Eugene WILLIAMS, Appellee.
No. 70-606.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.
Oct. 27, 1971.
Rehearing Denied Dec. 10, 1971.
Joseph P. D’Alessandro, State’s Atty., and Louis S. St. Laurent, Chief Asst. State’s Atty., Fort Myers, for appellant.
C. Harris Dittmar, Jacksonville, for ap-pellee.

Opinion:
McNULTY, Judge.
The court below dismissed with prejudice an indictment charging Richard Eugene Williams with the felony-murder of one Hannsen and the state appeals. We affirm.
It undisputedly appears for purposes of the instant case that appellee Williams and another owned a hunting camp in Collier County. Williams conspired with and procured the aforesaid Hannsen to unlawfully burn certain buildings in the camp. In pursuance thereof Hannsen went into the campsite alone (Williams being actually out of the county) and was fatally burned in an ensuing fire while attempting to commit the arson aforesaid. The trial court found that Hannsen "met death at his own hands from injuries suffered when he accidentally set fire to himself while attempting to burn certain buildings and the state does not dispute this finding. Whereupon the court dismissed the indictment as not stating a cause of action under the felony-murder statute, § 782.04, F.S.A.
The precise questiofl presented is unique to Florida criminal jurisprudence. We have found no Florida decision dealing with the responsibility of a felon for the death of his co-conspirator which occurs during the perpetration of one of the felonies enumerated in our first degree murder statute. There are, to be sure, Florida cases which do hold that a killing need not actually be done by any of the perpetrators thereof in order to support a felony-murder charge; but in those cases the person killed was a policeman killed by a fellow officer or an innocent bystander killed by the intended victim of the felony in perpetration while resisting or attempting to prevent such felony. As will be seen, even though a felony-murder charge was upheld in those cases they are not inconsistent with what we hold hereinafter on the peculiar facts of this case.
Other states have dealt with the question, however, and even, indeed, in an arson context; but the results are in conflict. First, we note that in Commonwealth v. Bolish, a Pennsylvania case principally relied upon by the state, it was held that in a conspiracy to commit arson a conspirator may be charged with felony-murder if his co-conspirator dies in the contemplated arson. We note further, however, that that case has been effectively diluted by later Pennsylvania cases. When that case itself subsequently came before the Pennsylvania court a second time, for example, it was stressed that the appellant was present at the scene of the arson and was an active participant. A still later Pennsylvania case, in distinguishing Bolish, reiterated this point and emphasized in addition that it "may have been a case of express malice" in that the deceased arsonist may have been a "weak-minded tool" of Bolish who did Bolish's bidding in perpetrating a serious crime by highly dangerous means (i. e., with a highly flammable liquid and an electric hotplate). Accordingly, it appears that a controlling consideration in Bolish was the actual presence of, and participation in the dangerous exercise by, the accused surviving co-conspirator. Similarly, in State v. Morran, the only other like case cited by the state, active participation by the accused was also important to the result reached therein.
On the other hand, the courts of still other states have held felony-murder statutes inapplicable in situations more precisely like that before us wherein there was no question of the presence of the accused and the deceased died by his own hand. These cases hold that the death of a co-conspirator entirely by his own act is simply not a criminal homicide. Such deceased conspirator was held not guilty of homicide (i. e., killing another) and therefore his act, attributable to the surviving co-conspirator, cannot make the latter guilty of homicide. We agree with this latter conclusion, but would suggest even a more cogent reason therefore; one which, as the test, would be equally applicable in other felony-murder cases regardless of who did the actual killing, whether a perpetrator, the intended victim or a police officer.
The test we suggest is predicated upon the obvious ultimate purpose of the felony-murder statute itself which is, we think, to prevent the death of innocent persons likely to occur during the commission of certain inherently dangerous and particularly grievous felonies. The method employed by the statute to accomplish this purpose is, of course, to create a deterrent to the commission of such felonies by substituting the mere intent to commit those felonies for the premeditated design to effect death which would otherwise be required in first degree murder if someone were killed in the commission thereof. But we emphasize that the statute is primarily designed to protect the innocent public; and it would be incongruous to reach a conclusion MVing the effect of placing the perpetrators themselves beneath its mantle. Holding that the facts herein constitute first degree murder would give the statute just such an effect and would render the accused answerable equally as though he were responsible for the death of an absolutely innocent person. We think such result anathema to the statutory purpose. So really, in these cases, the inquiry should be simply whether an innocent person was killed.
We suggest, further, that applying this test would also avoid the semantic bind in which some courts, notably the Pennsylvania court, unhappily found themselves, viz., trying to determine first whether the killing at the hands of one other than a perpetrator was in fact "unlawful" so that vicarious responsibility could be laid to the perpetrators. Under this approach some killings of innocent people, even though flowing directly from the perpetration of one of the specified felonies, had to be termed "accidental", "excusable" or "justifiable"; and thereafter, of course, nothing short of a non sequitur could impute an "unlawful" homicide to the accused perpetrator. We think such results unfortunate and unnecessary; and a simple application of the clear statutory purpose, as suggested, would obviate those results.
We hold, therefore, that the felony-murder statute is applicable only when an innocent person is killed as a sequential result of events or circumstances set in motion by one or more persons acting in furtherance of an intent or attempt to commit one of the felonies specified in such statute. As noted, the facts herein are patently outside the scope of this rationale and, accordingly, the felony-murder statute is inapplicable.
This does not mean to say however, that co-conspirators acting in furtherance of their conspiracy, even to commit the high crimes contemplated by the felony-murder statute, can kill or murder each other with impunity. It is one thing to say that such conspirators forfeit their right to live vis a vis innocent persons while in perpetration of their evil aims, but it is quite another to say that they are not protected otherwise from unlawful killing. Certainly, one conspirator may be guilty of the murder of a co-conspirator if the facts support premeditated murder or a lesser degree of unlawful homicide. But this is quite apart from the felony-murder concept with which we are here concerned.
We think the lower court was correct, and the order dismissing the indictment with prejudice is affirmed.
HOBSON, J., concurs.
PIERCE, C. J., dissents with opinion.
. But see, State ex rel. Glenn v. Klein (Fla.App.1966), 184 So.2d 904, wherein the accused had earlier been convicted under a charge of first degree murder for the death of his cofelon, shot by the intended victim of a robbery. The cited case, however, came up on a subsequent charge of robbery and the sole question involved was one of double jeopardy.
. See, Hornbeck v. State (Fla.1955), 77 So.2d 876 (officer shot by either robber or fellow officer) ; and Griffith v. State (Fla.App.1965), 171 So.2d 597 (bystander shot by robbery victim). But see, State v. Andreu (Fla.App.1969), 222 So.2d 449.
. (1955), 381 Pa. 500, 113 A.2d 464.
. (1958), 391 Pa. 550, 138 A.2d 447.
. Commonwealth ex rel. Smith v. Myers (1970), 438 Pa. 218, 261 A.2d 550, 556.
. We think it not inappropriate at this juncture, to point out that Pennsylvania has presently gone too far, in our view, in this direction; and it now appears that the felony-murder statute is applicable in that state only if a perpetrator is the actual killer. Since the case relied upon in Bolish (i. e., Commonwealth v. Almeida (1949), 362 Pa. 596, 68 A.2d 595) was expressly overruled, and Bolish merely distinguished, Bolish must now be considered within this latter category. (See, Commonwealth v. Myers, id.).
. (1957), 131 Mont. 17, 306 P.2d 679.
. This is evident from the opinion stating that the facts in People v. Ferlin (1928), 203 Cal. 587, 265 P. 230, are clearly distinguishable. Although the opinion does not say why the facts are distinguishable, it cites another California case (People v. Cabaltero (1939), 31 Cal.App.2d 52, 87 P.2d 364) which distinguishes Ferlin on the basis that in the latter case the co-conspirator killed himself while he alone was perpetrating the felony.
. See, People v. Ferlin (1928), 203 Cal. 587, 265 P. 230; People v. Jennings (1966), 243 Cal.App.2d 324, 52 Cal.Rptr. 329; Woodruff v. Superior Court of County of Los Angeles (1965), 237 Cal.App.2d 749, 47 Cal.Rptr. 291; and People v. La Barbera (1936), 159 Misc. 177, 287 N.Y.S. 257.
. We do not, however, agree with additional reasoning used in those cases to support the result reached, some of which appears unduly to limit the scope of the felony-murder concept.
. See, Pope v. State (1922), 84 Fla. 428, 94 So. 865.
. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Redline (1958), 391 Pa. 486, 137 A.2d 472. Indeed, it is likely that this approach is responsible for the apparent present Pennsylvania rule to which we cannot subscribe. See, n. 6, supra.