{"id":697,"date":"2018-08-22T12:43:15","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T16:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearwatersexcrimeslawyer.com\/?p=237"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:06:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:06:38","slug":"florida-court-reverses-sex-crime-conviction-on-the-basis-of-mental-incapacity-instruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-reverses-sex-crime-conviction-on-the-basis-of-mental-incapacity-instruction\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Court Reverses Sex Crime Conviction on the Basis of Mental Incapacity Instruction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal recently reversed a man\u2019s conviction for sexual battery because of an improper jury instructions. Before a jury goes to deliberate, they may be given instructions related to the charges against the defendant or other circumstances of the case. Sometimes the instructions will include content that the defense attorney objects to. If the instructions are still included, it may be the basis for an appeal, as here. If you are charged with a sex crime it is extremely important that you contact a knowledgeable Clearwater sex crimes attorney as soon as possible. They may be able to help you get your charges reduced or thrown out.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Instructions at Issue <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In this case, the defendant was charged with one count of sexual battery. There are standard jury instructions in Florida that apply to sexual battery charges. However, there are also instructions that will only be included in some cases, or \u201cif applicable.\u201d One of the \u201cif applicable\u201d instructions that was included in the jury instructions in this case involves \u201cevidence of victim\u2019s mental incapacity or defect.\u201d The defense attorney objected to inclusion of this instruction at trial, but the objection was overruled. Thus, the jury was instructed to consider it. \u201cEvidence of (victim\u2019s) mental incapacity or defect, if any, may be considered in determining whether there was an intelligent, knowing, and voluntary consent.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-reverses-sex-crime-conviction-on-the-basis-of-mental-incapacity-instruction\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Florida Court Reverses Sex Crime Conviction on the Basis of Mental Incapacity Instruction\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal recently reversed a man\u2019s conviction for sexual battery because of an improper jury instructions. Before a jury goes to deliberate, they may be given instructions related to the charges against the defendant or other circumstances of the case. Sometimes the instructions will include content that the defense attorney [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sex-crimes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sex Charge: Sex Crime Conviction Basis Mental Incapacity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Accused of sex crime charges? See how this ruling on sex crime conviction basis may help or hurt your defense in Pinellas County. See how to fight back?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-reverses-sex-crime-conviction-on-the-basis-of-mental-incapacity-instruction\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Sex Charge: Sex Crime Conviction Basis Mental Incapacity\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Accused of sex crime charges? See how this ruling on sex crime conviction basis may help or hurt your defense in Pinellas County. See how to fight back?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hanlon Law, PA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sex Charge: Sex Crime Conviction Basis Mental Incapacity","description":"Accused of sex crime charges? See how this ruling on sex crime conviction basis may help or hurt your defense in Pinellas County. 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See how to fight back?","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hanlon Law, PA","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-reverses-sex-crime-conviction-on-the-basis-of-mental-incapacity-instruction\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-reverses-sex-crime-conviction-on-the-basis-of-mental-incapacity-instruction\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"headline":"Florida Court Reverses Sex Crime Conviction on the Basis of Mental Incapacity Instruction","datePublished":"2018-08-22T16:43:15+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:06:38+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-reverses-sex-crime-conviction-on-the-basis-of-mental-incapacity-instruction\/"},"wordCount":612,"articleSection":["Sex Crimes"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-reverses-sex-crime-conviction-on-the-basis-of-mental-incapacity-instruction\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-reverses-sex-crime-conviction-on-the-basis-of-mental-incapacity-instruction\/","name":"Sex Charge: Sex Crime Conviction Basis Mental Incapacity","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-08-22T16:43:15+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:06:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"description":"Accused of sex crime charges? 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