Full Opinion

FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL STATE OF FLORIDA _____________________________ No. 1D2025-2335 _____________________________ MATTHEW R. PEOPLES, Appellant, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee. _____________________________ On appeal from the Circuit Court for Holmes County. Russell S. Roberts, Judge. September 2, 2026 NEFF, J. Matthew R. Peoples appeals his judgment and sentence for second-degree murder with a firearm. He raises two issues. First, he contends that the trial court should have granted his motion for judgment of acquittal because the State did not prove the depraved mind element that distinguishes second-degree murder from manslaughter. Second, Peoples contends that the State committed fundamental error by presenting evidence that he was under the influence of marijuana at the time of the shooting and then arguing in closing that the drug affected his perception and reaction time. We agree with the first contention and reject the second. Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence established an impulsive overreaction to a perceived threat during a sudden and volatile domestic crisis, not the ill will, hatred, spite, or evil intent that second-degree murder requires. We reverse the conviction for second-degree murder with a firearm and remand with directions to enter an amended judgment of conviction for the lesser-included offense of manslaughter with a firearm. We affirm in all other respects. I. Pertinent Facts Peoples lived with his mother in Bonifay, next door to his sister, Kaylynn Streight. Streight’s on-and-off boyfriend, Tyler Pate, was the father of her young autistic son. Peoples and Pate had no history of animosity. The evidence showed that the two families had gone camping together a week before the shooting. On the evening of September 4, 2023, Pate had been drinking. His blood-alcohol level was later measured at .192. Streight testified that Pate became aggressive and threatening when he drank, and on that night, he was especially belligerent. He argued with Streight over her failure to fill a prescription for pain medication. The argument escalated, and Pate began destroying the home. He threw a fan, an ashtray, and a DVD player. He also smashed a fifty-five-inch television, busted a light fixture, knocked pictures off the walls, punched through a pantry wall, and kicked in a bathroom door. Streight’s son was struck by a lit cigarette from the overturned ashtray and was nearly hit by the television. Alana Peoples, the mother of both Peoples and Streight, called her daughter repeatedly and on the third call heard her screaming in a way she had never heard before—terrified and begging for help. Mrs. Peoples ran next door with Peoples close behind. When the door opened, Peoples looked inside and saw the destruction. He told Streight to get her son and go to their mother’s house. During the confrontation at the door, Pate told Peoples that Streight was lucky he had not done to her what he had done to the house. Peoples, his sister, her son, and their mother left and returned to the mother’s house next door. Once back at the mother’s house, the family dead-bolted the front door. Peoples then told his mother to put in earplugs—explaining that if Pate broke through the locked door, he would shoot him. Streight and Pate had no custody arrangement regarding their son, and Streight testified she feared Pate would attempt to enter the home and take the child. Peoples 2 loaded his firearm, stood near the door to prevent forced entry, and called 911, as his mother had already done. After a period in which no further confrontation occurred, Streight returned to her home to retrieve clothing, expecting Pate to have left as was his custom after an argument. But he had not left. The argument resumed, and as Streight walked back toward her mother’s house, Pate followed her, screaming. Peoples told Pate to go home, warned him not to come onto the property, and stated that he was armed. Peoples had not drawn the gun. Pate then threatened Peoples, called him a derogatory name, and charged at him with balled fists. Peoples reacted by pulling the gun and firing a single shot. Pate, who was unarmed, fell to the ground dead, approximately eight to ten feet from where Peoples stood. The physical evidence—a single shell casing approximately seven and a half feet from the body and a single gunshot wound to the chest with no soot or stippling—was consistent with a shot fired from several feet away as Pate advanced. Peoples went inside, unloaded the firearm, and returned outside to wait for law enforcement to arrive. He surrendered with his hands raised and without resistance. The jury found Peoples guilty of second-degree murder and made a special finding that he possessed and discharged a firearm that caused Pate’s death. Peoples moved for a judgment of acquittal at the close of the State’s case and renewed the motion after trial. The court denied both motions. The trial court sentenced Peoples to thirty years in prison, including a twenty- five-year mandatory minimum followed by probation for the remainder of his life. This appeal followed. II. Analysis We review the denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal de novo, considering the evidence and all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the State. Greenwade v. State, 124 So. 3d 215, 220 (Fla. 2013). Second-degree murder is the unlawful killing of a human being perpetrated by an act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life. § 782.04(2), 3 Fla. Stat. (2023). The depraved mind element is what separates second-degree murder from manslaughter, and it requires evidence of ill will, hatred, spite, or an evil intent. Porter v. State, 384 So. 3d 839, 841–42 (Fla. 1st DCA 2024); Perez v. State, 187 So. 3d 1279, 1282 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016). When the evidence shows no more than an impulsive overreaction to an attack or a perceived threat, it supports a conviction for manslaughter, not second- degree murder. Perez, 187 So. 3d at 1282. The State’s theory of a depraved mind rested on three pieces of evidence: 1) that Peoples told his mother to put in earplugs before he went back outside, which the State characterizes as proof he had already resolved to use the firearm; 2) that his remark to Pate—“you’re lucky you didn’t put your hands on my sister”— reflected a willingness to escalate; and 3) that Peoples did not stop his sister from returning to Pate’s house unescorted, which the State argues is inconsistent with a genuine fear that Pate posed a danger. Taken together, and even viewed in the light most favorable to the State, we conclude that this evidence does not establish the ill will, hatred, spite, or evil intent that the depraved- mind element demands. To the contrary, the evidence shows a man responding to a sudden and escalating threat to his family. Peoples’s first response to the disturbance was to remove his sister and her child from danger and to call the police. These actions are not escalation of the volatile situation. The final encounter with Pate occurred approximately ten minutes after the family had returned to the mother’s house, when Peoples and Streight believed the victim had left. However, Pate had not left and again began screaming at Streight. During this time, Peoples kept the firearm in his waistband, undrawn, until Pate crossed into Mrs. Peoples’s property and rushed at him with balled-up fists after exchanging insults and threats. Streight, who witnessed the charge, testified she became concerned about her brother’s safety and moved to get between them. Before she could do so, Peoples fired a single shot. Thereafter, Peoples immediately disarmed himself and surrendered to law enforcement with his hands raised when they arrived. Peoples and Pate had never come to blows previously or had any history of physical confrontation, and the two families had gone camping together a week earlier. While the intent required 4 for second-degree murder may ordinarily be inferred from the circumstances, see Williams v. State, 244 So. 3d 1200, 1204 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018), the circumstances here will not bear that inference. The State’s strongest evidence is Peoples’s statement to his mother, after he had moved her and his sister to safety and locked the door, that she should put in earplugs because he would shoot Pate if Pate forced his way inside. Read in the State’s favor, that statement shows Peoples had resolved in advance that he would use lethal force under a specific contingency. But that contingency—a forced entry into the home—never came to pass. By the time the fatal shot was fired, the parties had moved outside. The immediate cause of Peoples’s drawing the firearm during the final confrontation outside was Pate crossing onto Peoples’s property and charging at him with his fists balled, not a forced entry into the home. A statement of conditional intent to protect one’s family against a feared forced entry is not evidence of ill will, hatred, spite, or evil intent toward the victim. It is evidence of fear—precisely the kind of fear that, when it produces an impulsive and disproportionate response to a later sudden threat, supports manslaughter rather than murder. Where courts have found sufficient evidence of depraved mind following a sudden confrontation, the record has typically contained some circumstantial evidence of malice beyond the act itself—a contemporaneous statement expressing intent to kill, Perez, 187 So. 3d at 1282–83 (defendant told victim “I should have killed you” immediately after shooting him), or evidence that the defendant sought out the victim with lethal intent before the confrontation began, Porter, 384 So. 3d at 842 (defendant told witnesses he was going to kill someone hours before the shooting, and there was evidence of prior animosity between the victim and the defendant). No such evidence exists here. Our conclusion accords with a settled line of decisions reducing second-degree murder convictions to manslaughter where a defendant used excessive force in response to a sudden attack by an unarmed aggressor, absent any history of enmity. See Sandhaus v. State, 200 So. 3d 112, 116 (Fla. 5th DCA 2016); Dorsey v. State, 74 So. 3d 521, 524–25 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011); Poole v. State, 30 So. 3d 696, 698–99 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010); Rayl v. State, 765 So. 5 2d 917, 919–20 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000). In each case, the defendant armed himself against an unarmed victim and used lethal force in the heat of a confrontation he did not provoke, and in each case the court held that the evidence supported manslaughter rather than second-degree murder. The State offered no basis to distinguish these decisions, and we find none. This case bears no resemblance to Ford v. State, 390 So. 3d 1238, 1238–39 (Fla. 1st DCA 2024), in which this court affirmed a second-degree murder conviction. The defendant in Ford had a documented history of animosity toward the victim, approached him and initiated a verbal altercation, and then drew a firearm before any physical confrontation occurred. When the unarmed victim reached for the weapon, a struggle ensued and the victim was shot in the back of the head. Ford then fled, disposed of the firearm, discarded his bloody clothes, and gave police inconsistent accounts of what happened. Here, by contrast, Peoples had no history of animosity toward Pate, did not initiate the confrontation, did not draw his weapon until Pate came onto his mother’s property and charged him, and immediately disarmed himself and surrendered to police. Ford illustrates the kind of conduct—prior enmity, initiation, and consciousness of guilt—that supports a finding of a depraved mind. And all these factors are absent from this record. Because the State did not present legally sufficient evidence from which a rational jury could find that Peoples acted with a depraved mind, the conviction for second-degree murder cannot stand. The evidence does, however, support a conviction for manslaughter with a firearm. See § 782.07, Fla. Stat. The proper remedy is to reverse the conviction and remand for entry of judgment and resentencing on the lesser included offense. See Dorsey, 74 So. 3d at 525. Peoples’s remaining contention—that the State committed fundamental error by presenting evidence that he was under the influence of marijuana at the time of the shooting and arguing in closing that the drug affected his perception and reaction time—is unpreserved and, in any event, without merit. 6 III. Conclusion We reverse the conviction for second-degree murder with a firearm, and remand with directions to enter an amended judgment of conviction for the lesser included offense of manslaughter with a firearm. Peoples shall be resentenced accordingly. In all other respects, the judgment and sentence are affirmed. REVERSED in part, AFFIRMED in part, and REMANDED with directions. KELSEY and NORDBY, JJ., concur. _____________________________ Not final until disposition of any timely and authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 9.331. _____________________________ Jessica J. Yeary, Public Defender, Barbara J. Busharis, Assistant Public Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellant. James Uthmeier, Attorney General, Ryan Edward Roy, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee. 7