Case Name: Harry MUNGIN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1984-04-06
Citations: 458 So. 2d 293
Docket Number: No. AT-468
Parties: Harry MUNGIN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: ZEHMER, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 458
Pages: 293–299-301

Head Matter:
Harry MUNGIN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. AT-468.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
April 6, 1984.
On Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Nov. 9, 1984.
James M. Donohoe, Jr., Gainesville, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Wallace E. Allbritton, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

Opinion:
ERVIN, Chief Judge.
Mungin appeals his conviction of inmate possession of a weapon in violation of Section 944.47(l)(c), Florida Statutes, following a jury trial at which the trial court excluded from admission into evidence proffered defense testimony relating to the defenses of self-defense, necessity and duress. We reverse, finding that such testimony was improperly withheld from the jury's consideration.
At trial, Correctional Officer Smith testified that while he was on duty at Florida State Prison on December 11, 1982, he observed an altercation between inmates Mungin and Williams. Smith grabbed Williams, who to him appeared to be the aggressor, and then turned to look at Mun-gin, standing approximately three or four feet away, holding a homemade knife. At that time Correctional Officers Marshall and Shaw arrived, and Marshall instructed Mungin to hand him the knife. Mungin responded that he would do so as soon as the room was cleared of inmates. After Smith had led Williams out, he saw Mungin hand the knife to Marshall.
At trial, when counsel for the defense attempted to question Smith about any problems that might have occurred between the two inmates on the day preceding the incident, the state entered an objection on grounds of irrelevancy, which was sustained by the trial court. When the same objection was made by the state to testimony by Mungin on the subject of recent prior disputes with Williams, a proffer of the following facts was made by defense counsel outside the jury's presence: On December the tenth, Mungin saw Williams harassing his friend, another inmate named Stark. In an attempt to end the dispute, Mungin told Williams that he had money and would pay the debt. Williams' response was to stab at Mungin twice with a knife, missing both times. Mungin testified that the attempted assault upset him greatly because he had nearly died of a stab wound to his throat, inflicted a month earlier. Fearful of another such attack, he tried, unsuccessfully, to obtain an apology from Williams and settle the matter. The following day, as Mungin entered the day-room, Williams stood up, approached him, reached under his shirt and seized a knife, which he used again to attack him. During the ensuing scuffle, and while Williams' friends were throwing chairs at Mungin, the knife was dropped and Mungin retrieved it. At that point Correctional Officer Smith came in and subdued Williams. Mungin at first refused to surrender the knife until the other hostile inmates were removed. On this proffer, the trial court sustained the state's objection, explaining that such a defense was not justification for Mungin's possession of a deadly weapon. Defense counsel then stated for the record that had the proffer been allowed, Stark and another inmate would have been called to the stand to corroborate Mungin's testimony. He then requested that such additional testimony, as well as Officer Smith's proposed testimony relating to the prior dispute, be proffered. The trial court replied that defense counsel should consider it proffered.
Under the unique circumstances presented by this case, we hold that the trial court erred in excluding the proffered testimony. The determination of whether the accused committed the offense charged, acting in his own defense, is a matter for consideration by the jury, see, e.g., Hall v. State, 136 Fla. 644, 187 So. 392 (Fla.1939); Stevens v. State, 397 So.2d 324 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981), not the trial judge. The jury was entitled to consider the testimony concerning the recent events which led to Mungin's temporary possession of the knife. Such testimony clearly tended to demonstrate that Mungin acted in self-defense. See, e.g., Moyers v. State, 400 So.2d 769 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981), affirmed State v. Moyers, 406 So.2d 1120 (Fla.1981); Wright v. State, 442 So.2d 1058 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983). It, moreover, could have established to the jury's satisfaction Mun-gin's well-founded fear that if he had not used all available resources at his disposal to remove the knife from the hands of his aggressor, he might have suffered death or great bodily harm.
In so concluding we have not overlooked our prior opinion in Carter v. State, 312 So.2d 494 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975), holding that the defense of necessity is not available to one charged with possession of a deadly weapon in his capacity as a prisoner, even though its possession is for the sole purpose of defending himself against other inmates. It does not appear from the court's very brief opinion in Carter that the inmate came about his possession of the knife as the result of his forced removal of it from his aggressor while defending himself against the use of immediate, deadly force. Had the facts in the case at bar demonstrated that Mungin had sufficient time to reflect on the consequences of possession, so that he caused to have manufactured or imported into the prison system the knife in question, we consider that the Carter interpretation of section 944.47(l)(c) would be fully applicable in the instant case. The possession of the weapon under such circumstances would be clearly at variance with the legislative purpose expressed in the statute to bar the introduction of deadly weapons into the grounds of the state penal institutions. We do not consider, however, that section 944.47(l)(c) dispossesses an inmate's right to defend himself against the peril of death or serious bodily injury, even to the extent of removing the offending weapon from the hands of the would-be aggressor.
Reversed and remanded for new trial.
ZEHMER, J., concurs.
BOOTH, J., dissents with written opinion.
. Section 944.47(l)(a)5 and (c), Fla.Stat. provides:
(l)(a) Except through regular channels as authorized by the officer in charge of the correctional institution, it is unlawful to introduce into or upon the grounds of any state correctional institution, or to take or attempt to take or send therefrom, any of the following articles which are hereby declared to be contraband for the purposes of this section, to wit:
5. Any firearm or weapon of any kind or any explosive substance.
(c) It is unlawful for any inmate of any state correctional institution or any person while upon the grounds of any state correctional institution to be in actual or constructive possession of any article or thing declared by this section to be contraband, except as authorized by the officer in charge of such correctional institution.