Faulk v. State
2017 WL 2628017, 222 So. 3d 621, 2017 Fla. App. LEXIS 8903 (2017)
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Rule of Law:
A trial court's failure to instruct the jury on a defendant's sole, evidence-supported affirmative defense constitutes fundamental error that deprives the defendant of a fair trial and requires reversal for a new trial.
Facts:
- On New Year's Eve, a woman (the victim) was waiting in her vehicle outside a club to pick up a friend.
- The appellant entered the passenger seat of the victim's vehicle.
- The victim alleged that the appellant entered uninvited, demanded money, and then battered her when she did not comply.
- The appellant testified that the victim, knowing he was a drug dealer, invited him into her car to purchase cocaine.
- The appellant stated he gave the victim cocaine and requested payment.
- The appellant admitted that he battered the victim when she refused to pay him right away.
Procedural Posture:
- The appellant was prosecuted for burglary with a battery in a Florida trial court.
- During the trial, the appellant's counsel did not request a jury instruction on the affirmative defense of consent.
- The jury found the appellant guilty of the charged crime.
- The appellant appealed his conviction to the District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
- On appeal, the appellant argued that the trial court's failure to provide the consent instruction constituted fundamental error.
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Issue:
Does a trial court's failure to instruct the jury on the affirmative defense of consent to a burglary charge constitute fundamental error when that defense is the defendant's sole theory of defense and is supported by evidence presented at trial?
Opinions:
Majority - Wolf, J.
Yes. The trial court's failure to instruct the jury on the affirmative defense of consent constitutes fundamental error. While the failure to instruct on an affirmative defense is not automatically a fundamental error like the failure to instruct on an element of the crime, it becomes so when the instruction is 'so flawed as to deprive defendants claiming the defense ... of a fair trial.' This standard is met when a defendant is deprived of their sole or primary defense strategy and that defense is supported by evidence. Here, consent was the appellant's only viable defense to burglary, as he admitted to entering the vehicle with the intent to commit a crime (selling drugs) and to battering the victim. The defense was supported by his own testimony, and the jury's question during deliberations about whether 'entered' included invited entry demonstrated their confusion and the centrality of the consent issue. Because the lack of instruction deprived the appellant of his sole defense, it amounted to fundamental error.
Analysis:
This decision clarifies the high threshold for finding fundamental error in the context of omitted jury instructions for affirmative defenses. It establishes that even if defense counsel fails to request the instruction (constituting ineffective assistance), an appellate court can reverse a conviction if the omitted defense was the defendant's only viable path to acquittal and was supported by evidence. The ruling emphasizes that a fair trial requires the jury to be able to consider the defendant's primary theory of the case, especially when the jury's own questions highlight its confusion on that very issue. This sets a precedent for what constitutes a deprivation of a fair trial when a core defensive theory is not presented to the jury.
