Opinion
July 10, 1951.
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Union County, A.Z. Adkins, J.
Fagan Crouch, Gainesville, for appellant.
Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen. and Murray Sams, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The appellant was convicted of arson in the third degree, in the Circuit Court of Union County and sentenced to serve a term of one year at hard labor in the State Prison. He contends on this appeal that the evidence is insufficient to establish his guilt, and that the instructions of the trial judge to the jury did not adequately instruct them on "the law of the case."
All the evidence adduced by the State in this case was purely circumstantial; and this court has held that in order to warrant a conviction upon circumstantial evidence the proof must not only be consistent with the guilt of the accused but must also be inconsistent with any other hypothesis and must be of a conclusive character, pointing directly and unerringly to the accused's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and mere suspicion, probabilities or suppositions are insufficient. Ingram v. State, 144 Fla. 714, 198 So. 464; Lyons v. State, Fla., 47 So.2d 541. In this case, while there was a strong suspicion that the fire had been caused by appellant, it is not clear that the evidence as a whole is inconsistent with innocence and justified a finding that, beyond a reasonable doubt, the appellant is guilty of the crime as charged, of "willfully and maliciously" setting fire to and burning the property, as defined by Section 806.03, Florida Statutes, F.S.A.
When the weakness of the evidence is considered along with the brevity of the charges, including a failure to instruct upon the law relating to circumstantial evidence, we think that justice would best be served by granting to the appellant a new trial.
Accordingly, the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
SEBRING, C.J., TERRELL and ROBERTS, JJ., and PARKS, Associate Justice, concur.