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561 So. 2d 576

Docket No. 74532.

State v. Ellison

STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Stanley B. ELLISON, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Florida

Decided May 17, 1990.

Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1990-05-17

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“from ill will, hatred, spite or an evil intent.”

quoted by 3 later decisions, including State v. Johnson, 805 So. 2d 32 - Sigler v. State

“In May 1988, a gray Grand Am automobile was stolen from a Jacksonville mall. The following day, a police officer observed a gray Grand Am exceeding the speed limit and clocked the vehicle at 67 M.P.H. in a 35 M.P.H. zone. The officer commenced pursuit, and the car began weaving in and out of traffic at high speed, ramming through a blocked toll booth gate at an estimated speed of 65 M.P.H. The car then jumped the median onto a service road, accelerating to approximately 70 M.P.H. and, already fishtailing, entered a major thoroughfare. As it did so, the driver lost control, crossed the center line and struck another vehicle head on, fatally injuring a 16-month old baby who was a passenger in that vehicle.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including 41 So. 3d 327 - Hicks v. State, 688 So. 2d 338 - Davison v. State

Relies on 547 So. 2d 1003 - Ellison v. State · 561 So. 2d 583 - State v. Young · 543 So. 2d 432 - Butler v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1990-05-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently July 2018

20 state decisions

100199020002010decided

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 →

¶1Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Edward C. Hill, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for petitioner.

¶2Louis O. Frost, Jr., Public Defender, and James T. Miller, Asst. Public Defender, Jacksonville, for respondent.

¶3PER CURIAM.

¶4We have for review Ellison v. State, 547 So.2d 1003 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989), due to certified conflict with Butler v. State, 543 So.2d 432 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989). We grant review pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(4) of the Florida Constitution. We quash in part the decision of the district court below.

¶5In May 1988, a gray Grand Am automobile was stolen from a Jacksonville mall. The following day, a police officer observed a gray Grand Am exceeding the speed limit and gave chase. Following a high speed pursuit, the driver of the Grand Am lost control and struck another vehicle head on, fatally injuring a sixteen-month-old baby. Ellison, the driver of the Grand Am, was charged with, and convicted of, second-degree murder. At sentencing, the judge added twenty-one points to the scoresheet total for legal constraint because Ellison was on juvenile furlough status at the time of the offense.

¶6Ellison was sentenced to twenty-two years' incarceration for the second-degree murder conviction, and five years for the grand theft, to run concurrently. The district court determined that there was insufficient evidence to support a second-degree murder charge because the state failed to show that Ellison acted out of "ill-will, hatred, spite or an evil intent" toward his eventual victim. It reversed and remanded with directions to enter judgment for manslaughter. It also ruled that it was error to assign status points based on Ellison's furlough status. It certified conflict with Butler, wherein the court held that juvenile furlough constitutes legal constraint for the purpose of assessing status points.

¶7The state argues that the district court erred in interpreting Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.701(d)(6) as excluding juvenile furlough status from legal constraint for the purpose of adding status points to the guidelines scoresheet. We agree. This Court addressed this issue in State v. Young, 561 So.2d 583 (Fla. 1990), holding that juvenile furlough constitutes legal constraint for the purpose of guidelines sentencing.

¶8*577 We agree with the district court's conclusion that there was insufficient evidence that Ellison acted out of "ill-will, hatred, spite or an evil intent" toward his eventual victim. See Fla.Std.Jury Instr. (Crim.) at 65. Ellison's act of losing control of the car was not committed from ill-will or spite.

¶9We approve that part of the district court's opinion concerning the reduction of the sentence from second-degree murder to manslaughter. We quash the portion of the decision relating to juvenile furlough and remand for resentencing.

¶10It is so ordered.

¶11EHRLICH, C.J., and OVERTON, McDONALD, SHAW, BARKETT, GRIMES and KOGAN, JJ., concur.

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