{"id":708,"date":"2018-11-14T12:06:04","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T17:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearwatersexcrimeslawyer.com\/?p=309"},"modified":"2026-01-31T12:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T17:57:09","slug":"florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Appeals Holds Enough Evidence Showed Gun was Real"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unless the weapon used to commit a crime is recovered, it may be unclear what kind of weapon it is. In a case heard by the Florida First District Court of Appeal, a defendant argued that his conviction for a Florida robbery with a firearm should be overturned. His position was that the trial court erred in their jury instructions and thus the court committed fundamental error.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is a Firearm?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>It may seem like a straightforward question, but your experienced Clearwater violent crimes attorney can tell you it is not as simple as it sounds. In this case, there was surveillance footage that showed the defendant holding up the clerk at gunpoint. The defendant alleges that the \u201cweapon\u201d he was using was actually a BB gun, though the prosecution showed evidence that would tend to indicate that it was not. However, the main argument in this appeal was over jury instructions.<\/p>\n<p>During closing arguments, the defense explained that a firearm is a weapon that expels a projectile through the use of an explosive. At trial, and with the consent of defense counsel, the jury was given instructions that once again explained that a firearm requires an explosive action. As they were deliberating, the jury asked the court to clarify whether a BB gun counted as a firearm or not. The prosecution noted that there was a case that specifically held that a BB gun was not a firearm. The judge decided to tell the jury that they have heard the evidence and referred them back to the jury instructions. The jury returned with a verdict that found the defendant guilty of robbery with a firearm and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison with a mandatory 10 years due to possession of a firearm.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/#more-708\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unless the weapon used to commit a crime is recovered, it may be unclear what kind of weapon it is. In a case heard by the Florida First District Court of Appeal, a defendant argued that his conviction for a Florida robbery with a firearm should be overturned. His position was that the trial court [&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-708","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>On Appeal: Enough Evidence Showed Gun Real<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Small details can matter in court. A gun charge case can hinge on enough showed gun real. See how this ruling your defense. Find out your options today.\" \/>\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-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"On Appeal: Enough Evidence Showed Gun Real\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Small details can matter in court. A gun charge case can hinge on enough showed gun real. See how this ruling your defense. Find out your options today.\" \/>\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":"On Appeal: Enough Evidence Showed Gun Real","description":"Small details can matter in court. A gun charge case can hinge on enough showed gun real. See how this ruling your defense. Find out your options today.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"On Appeal: Enough Evidence Showed Gun Real","twitter_description":"Small details can matter in court. A gun charge case can hinge on enough showed gun real. See how this ruling your defense. Find out your options today.","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-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"headline":"Florida Appeals Holds Enough Evidence Showed Gun was Real","datePublished":"2018-11-14T17:06:04+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T17:57:09+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/"},"wordCount":572,"articleSection":["Sex Crimes"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/","name":"On Appeal: Enough Evidence Showed Gun Real","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-11-14T17:06:04+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T17:57:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"description":"Small details can matter in court. A gun charge case can hinge on enough showed gun real. See how this ruling your defense. Find out your options today.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-holds-enough-evidence-showed-gun-was-real\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Florida Appeals Holds Enough Evidence Showed Gun was Real"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/","name":"Clearwater Criminal Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Florida Defense Lawyer \u2014 Hanlon Law","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939","name":"Hanlon Law, PA","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/28c5c60eb08894e1f2f27e2e759788e24587bda0a815ed045456f272f44b2849?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Hanlon Law, PA"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1363,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/1363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}