Opinion ID: 1822394
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Sufficiency of Evidence on Underlying Felonies

Text: Johnson next asserts that the evidence was legally insufficient to prove either kidnapping or sexual battery, and therefore also insufficient to prove felony murder. We conclude that the State presented sufficient evidence to support the verdict on both the underlying felonies and first-degree felony murder. The denial of a motion for a judgment of acquittal will be affirmed if there is competent, substantial evidence on each element of the crime. Pagan v. State, 830 So.2d 792, 803 (Fla.2002). This determination is made after all conflicts in the evidence and all reasonable inferences therefrom have been resolved in favor of the verdict on appeal. Tibbs v. State, 397 So.2d 1120, 1123 (Fla.1981). Where the evidence of guilt is wholly circumstantial, the evidence is legally sufficient only if it is inconsistent with any reasonable hypothesis of innocence. Darling v. State, 808 So.2d 145, 155 (Fla.2002). Here, the evidence of kidnapping rests on eyewitness testimony but the evidence of sexual battery is arguably circumstantial because the crime occurred in private and Johnson told police and testified that after he pulled Hagin into his bedroom, she began making sexual advances and then engaged in consensual sex. Kidnapping requires proof of both confinement and criminal intent underlying the confinement: The term kidnapping means forcibly, secretly, or by threat confining, abducting, or imprisoning another person against her or his will and without lawful authority, with intent to: 1. Hold for ransom or reward or as a shield or hostage. 2. Commit or facilitate commission of any felony. 3. Inflict bodily harm upon or to terrorize the victim or another person. 4. Interfere with the performance of any governmental or political function. § 787.01(1)(a), Fla. Stat. (2006). Johnson asserts that evidence of criminal intent was insufficient. The State maintains that it presented competent, substantial evidence that the confinement was with intent to inflict bodily harm or commit or facilitate commission of a sexual battery. We agree with the State. The evidence was sufficient to reach the jury on the element of intent to inflict bodily harm essential to kidnapping. Hagin was killed between the time that housemate Denigris saw Johnson yank or pull her into his room against her will and the time that Johnson emerged from the room, about an hour later. According to medical examiner Charles Diggs, in addition to the strangulation marks on her neck, Hagin suffered a premortem cut wound from a knife-like object above her left ear and contusions to her forehead and chin. These injuries, inflicted during Johnson's forcible confinement of Hagin, constitute competent, substantial evidence that the confinement was with intent to inflict bodily harm. See Thomas v. State, 894 So.2d 126, 131-32, 134-35 (Fla.2004) (holding that a combination of direct eyewitness testimony, the defendant's confession, and circumstantial evidence that defendant continued to confine victim while intending to inflict harm because she was eventually sexually assaulted and murdered was sufficient to support a conviction of kidnapping and first-degree murder), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 1003, 125 S.Ct. 1939, 161 L.Ed.2d 779 (2005); cf. Crain v. State, 894 So.2d 59, 74-75 (Fla.2004) (relying on physical and forensic evidence and disparity of size and strength between defendant and victim to find sufficient evidence of intent to harm during abduction). The circumstantial evidence of sexual battery was also legally sufficient to contradict Johnson's hypothesis of consensual sex and thereby enable the jury to find intent to commit or facilitate commission of a felony. Although the reasonableness of a hypothesis of innocence is a jury question, it is the court's duty to determine whether the state has been able to produce sufficient, competent evidence to contradict the defendant's story. Cochran v. State, 547 So.2d 928, 937 (Fla. 1989). Hagin's resistance to entering the bedroom, the evidence of manual and ligature strangulation, the request for her children, and the premortem wounds to her head, including one made by a knife-like object, were sufficient to permit the jury to reject Johnson's hypothesis. Cf. Fitzpatrick v. State, 900 So.2d 495, 509 (Fla. 2005) (relying on trauma to murder victim's breasts, puffiness around head, bruising on arms, scratches covering legs, and cigarette burn to leg as sufficient to reject defendant's assertion that sex was consensual); Zack v. State, 753 So.2d 9, 18 (Fla. 2000) (determining that although there is evidence from which a jury could conclude that [the victim] originally intended to engage in consensual intercourse with [the defendant], such evidence does not negate a finding to the contrary). Accordingly, the trial court did not err in denying the motion for judgment of acquittal on kidnapping or sexual battery, or first-degree felony murder based on these offenses. [6]