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 either murder. Although the evidence established motive, opportunity, and suspicion, it did not place Wright at the crime scene or otherwise identify him as the killer, and the defense hypothesis that someone else committed the murders was reasonable. 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.