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402 So. 2d 1337

Docket No. 80-1526.

RAL v. State

R.A.L., a Juvenile, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.

District Court of Appeal of Florida

Decided September 1, 1981.

Rehearing Denied September 28, 1981.

District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1981-09-01

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“unrefuted, exculpatory, and not unreasonable”

quoted by 7 later decisions, including RM v. State, 515 So. 2d 423 - BP v. State

“Proof of possession of property recently stolen, unless satisfactorily explained, gives rise to an inference that the person in possession of the property knew or should have known that the property had been stolen, [e.s.]”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including R.D.S. v. State, RDS v. State

Relies on Haywood v. United States · State v. Young · Fisk v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1981-09-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 30 later decisions — most recently April 2019 · most notably 466 So. 2d 395 - Coleman v. State (1985), 547 So. 2d 298 - ELS v. State (1989)

30 state decisions

2101981199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender and Beth C. Weitzner, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.

¶2Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Paul Mendelson, Asst. Atty. Gen. and Joseph Corey, Legal Intern, for appellee.

¶3Before BARKDULL, SCHWARTZ and FERGUSON, JJ.

¶4SCHWARTZ, Judge.

¶5The adjudication of delinquency under review is reversed with directions to discharge the appellant. Just as in A.R. v. State,393 So.2d 1174 (Fla.3d DCA 1981), the respondent's unrefuted, exculpatory, and not unreasonable explanation of his possession of a stolen moped — that he bought it at a flea market — rendered the state's case, which was based solely on the inference provided by Section 812.022(2), Florida Statutes (1979),[1] without any additional incriminating circumstances, insufficient as a matter of law to establish guilt. Fisk v. State,138 Fla. 815, 190 So. 10 (1939); A.R. v. State, supra, and cases cited; Schectman v. State,220 So.2d 657 (Fla.3d DCA 1969); see State v. Young,217 So.2d 567 (Fla. 1968), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 853, 90 S.Ct. 112, 24 L.Ed.2d 101 (1969); compare Burroughs v. State,221 So.2d 159 (Fla.2d DCA 1969); Borghese v. State,158 So.2d 785 (Fla.3d DCA 1963).

¶6Reversed.

NOTES

¶7[1] (2) Proof of possession of property recently stolen, unless satisfactorily explained, gives rise to an inference that the person in possession of the property knew or should have known that the property had been stolen. [e.s.]

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