Florida District Courts of Appeal, 1988

Whitcraft v. State

Whitcraft v. State
Florida District Courts of Appeal · Decided August 2, 1988 · Baskin, Ferguson, Nesbitt
528 So. 2d 998; 13 Fla. L. Weekly 1816; 1988 Fla. App. LEXIS 3477; 1988 WL 79322 (Southern Reporter, Second Series)

Whitcraft v. State

Opinion of the Court

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.

Concurring Opinion

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 *999error. 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.1 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.

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