Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

571 So. 2d 94

Docket Nos. 90-01189, 90-01257.

Hendry v. State

Jimmy Clemont HENDRY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. Trina Irene Hendry, Appellant, v. State of Florida, Appellee.

District Court of Appeal of Florida

Decided December 14, 1990.

District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1990-12-14

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently January 2009

4 state decisions

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“While it is true that the adoption law of this state provides that an adoption severs the relationship between the child and the natural parents and considers the adoptive parents to be the parents of that child thenceforth, it is obvious that this is intended to prevent the natural parents from interfering with the family life in the adoptive home .... It of course is impossible to nullify by legislative declaration the fact that the biological parents continue to be blood relatives of the child; the link of consanguinity cannot be erased by enactment.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including 112 Wash. App. 164 - State v. Hall, State v. Hall

“[A]n adoption statute cannot erase lineal consanguinity.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Hall

Relies on State v. Webb · Bohall v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1990-12-14

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1*95 Earl W. Baden, Jr., Bradenton, for appellant Jimmy Hendry.

¶2Harmon J. Karasick, Bradenton, for appellant Trina Hendry.

¶3Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and David R. Gemmer, Tampa, for appellee.

¶4PER CURIAM.

¶5We affirm the trial court's denials of defendants' motions to dismiss the informations in which defendants were charged with incest under section 826.04, Florida Statutes (1987). That section renders felonious marriage or sexual intercourse with a person to whom a defendant "is related by lineal consanguinity." The informations alleged that defendants were father and daughter and that they were either married to each other or had had sexual intercourse with each other. It has been stipulated that defendant Trina Hendry had been adopted by a third party prior to her marriage to defendant Jimmy Clemont Hendry.

¶6We recognize that the adoption statute includes in section 63.172(1)(b) the provision that adoption "terminates all legal relationships between the adopted person and his relatives, including his natural parents ... so that the adopted person thereafter is a stranger to his former relatives for all purposes... ." However, as the Indiana Supreme Court has held, an adoption statute cannot erase lineal consanguinity. "It of course is impossible to nullify by legislative declaration the fact that the biological parents continue to be blood relatives of the child; the link of consanguinity cannot be erased by enactment." Bohall v. State,546 N.E.2d 1214, 1215 (Ind. 1989). Further more, we agree with the trial court that by the passage of section 63.172 the legislature did not intend the absurd result of altering the above referenced biological fact. See State v. Webb,398 So.2d 820, 824 (Fla. 1981).

¶7Affirmed.

¶8SCHEB, A.C.J., CAMPBELL and LEHAN, JJ., concur.

/571/so2d/94 · .json · Public domain