When the appellate court determines that the evidence does not prove the offense for which the defendant was found guilty but does establish guilt of a lesser statutory degree of the offense or a lesser offense necessarily included in the offense charged, the appellate court shall reverse the judgment and direct the trial court to enter judgment for the lesser degree of the offense or for the lesser included offense.
Fla. Stat. § 924.34
When evidence sustains only conviction of lesser offense
Applied in 15 court decisions — leading case Kirkland v. State (1996)
Most recently applied in Parrondo v. State (March 2018)
History.--s. 310, ch. 19554, 1939; CGL 1940 Supp. 8663(323); s. 161, ch. 70-339; s. 1558, ch. 97-102.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Online Sunshine (Florida Legislature). Reproduced from public-domain Florida statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.