{"id":858,"date":"2020-12-03T16:45:35","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T21:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearwatercriminallawyer.net\/?p=858"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:33:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:33:01","slug":"florida-court-discusses-evidence-needed-to-prove-a-first-degree-murder-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-discusses-evidence-needed-to-prove-a-first-degree-murder-offense\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Court Discusses Evidence Needed to Prove a First Degree Murder Offense"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Under Florida law, a person does not actually have to participate in the physical act of killing another human to be charged with offenses related to the murder. In other words, a person who helps another person plan and commit a murder may be charged as a principal to first-degree murder. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/law.justia.com\/cases\/florida\/first-district-court-of-appeal\/2020\/19-0498.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent opinion<\/a>, a Florida court discussed what constitutes sufficient evidence that a person aided and abetted another individual in the commission of a homicide in a case in which a woman allegedly convinced her boyfriend to kill her husband. If you are charged with a murder offense, it is critical to meet with a trusted Clearwater criminal defense attorney to discuss your options.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Facts Surrounding the Murder <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>It is alleged that the defendant began having an extramarital affair with her husband&#8217;s best friend. The defendant did not want to obtain a divorce because she did not want to share custody of her young daughter. Therefore, she and the friend discussed a plan where the friend would take the husband duck hunting and push him into the water while he was wearing waders so that he would drown.<\/p>\n<p>It is reported that things originally went as planned, but the husband was able to swim to shore and scream for help. The friend then shot and killed the husband and buried his body in another location. The friend and the defendant later married, but their marriage fell apart, and during the course of their divorce, the friend kidnapped the defendant. After the friend&#8217;s arrest, he admitted to the murder and relayed the defendant&#8217;s part in the crime. She was charged with and convicted of principal to first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, after which she appealed.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-discusses-evidence-needed-to-prove-a-first-degree-murder-offense\/#more-858\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Under Florida law, a person does not actually have to participate in the physical act of killing another human to be charged with offenses related to the murder. In other words, a person who helps another person plan and commit a murder may be charged as a principal to first-degree murder. In a recent opinion, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-murder","category-violent-crimes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Evidence Rule: Evidence Needed Prove Murder Offense<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Facing violent crime charges? See how this ruling on needed prove first degree may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Want to know your options?\" \/>\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-discusses-evidence-needed-to-prove-a-first-degree-murder-offense\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Evidence Rule: Evidence Needed Prove Murder Offense\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Facing violent crime charges? See how this ruling on needed prove first degree may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Want to know your options?\" \/>\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":"Evidence Rule: Evidence Needed Prove Murder Offense","description":"Facing violent crime charges? See how this ruling on needed prove first degree may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Want to know your options?","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-court-discusses-evidence-needed-to-prove-a-first-degree-murder-offense\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Evidence Rule: Evidence Needed Prove Murder Offense","twitter_description":"Facing violent crime charges? See how this ruling on needed prove first degree may help or hurt your defense in Clearwater. Want to know your options?","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-discusses-evidence-needed-to-prove-a-first-degree-murder-offense\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-discusses-evidence-needed-to-prove-a-first-degree-murder-offense\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"headline":"Florida Court Discusses Evidence Needed to Prove a First Degree Murder Offense","datePublished":"2020-12-03T21:45:35+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:33:01+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-discusses-evidence-needed-to-prove-a-first-degree-murder-offense\/"},"wordCount":603,"articleSection":["Murder","Violent Crimes"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-discusses-evidence-needed-to-prove-a-first-degree-murder-offense\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/florida-court-discusses-evidence-needed-to-prove-a-first-degree-murder-offense\/","name":"Evidence Rule: Evidence Needed Prove Murder Offense","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-12-03T21:45:35+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-31T18:33:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneyclearwater.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/03dc1d8f0e988aa69b0efe5d06eeb939"},"description":"Facing violent crime charges? 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