Ralph Daniel Wright, Jr., Appellant v. State of Florida, Appellee

Summary

The court held that the wholly circumstantial evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Wright committed the murders. Although the evidence supported suspicion based on motive, opportunity, and ambiguous DNA evidence, it did not exclude reasonable hypotheses of innocence or directly connect Wright to the crime scene. The court reversed the convictions, vacated the death sentences, and remanded for entry of judgments of acquittal. Justice Canady, concurring, would reach the same result under the ordinary sufficiency-of-the-evidence standard without applying the special circumstantial-evidence standard.