# Nieves v. State

> District Court of Appeal of Florida · November 6, 2009 · 22 So. 3d 691

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/1558140

## Case

- **Full name:** Angel Manuel NIEVES, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
- **Court:** District Court of Appeal of Florida
- **Decided:** November 6, 2009
- **Citations:** 22 So. 3d 691; 2009 Fla. App. LEXIS 16548; 2009 WL 3683129
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Opinion by Khouzam
- **Judges:** Khouzam, Wallace, Morris
- **Cited by:** 17 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/1558140

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting the difference in jury instructions

## Opinion text

KHOUZAM, Judge.
Angel Manuel Nieves appeals his judgment and sentence for second-degree murder. Nieves contends that the trial court committed fundamental error when it instructed the jury on the lesser-included offense of manslaughter by act because the standard instruction in effect at the time of and given at his trial improperly imposed the additional element of “intent to kill” to that offense.
1
In support of his contention, Nieves relies on
Montgomery v. State,
— So.3d - (Fla. 1st DCA 2009),
review granted,
11 So.3d 943 (Fla.2009), in which the First District determined that the trial court fundamentally erred in giving the standard instruction on manslaughter by act in effect at the time of Montgomery’s trial, which was virtually identical to the instruction given at Nieves’ trial. This court, however, recently held that the instruction was not fundamentally erroneous.
See Zeigler v. State,
18 So.3d 1239, 1245-46 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009). Furthermore, unlike
Montgomery
and
Zeigler ,
the jury in Nieves’ case was also instructed on the lesser-included offense of manslaughter by culpable negligence.
Accordingly, we affirm Nieves’ conviction and sentence, and as we did in
Zeig-ler,
we certify conflict with
Montgomery.
Judgment and sentence affirmed; conflict certified.
WALLACE and MORRIS, JJ., Concur.
1
. The instruction given in Nieves' case is no longer the standard instruction for manslaughter by act. The instruction, which was modified by the supreme court in December 2008, now reads: "In order to convict of manslaughter by intentional act, it is not nec-essaiy for the State to prove that the defendant had a premeditated intent to cause death, only an intent to commit an act which caused death.”
In re Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases-Report No. 2007-10,
997 So.2d 403, 403 (Fla.2008).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/1558140. Public record. Not legal advice.