James Wyatt McGriff v. State of Florida

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING

We grant Appellee’s motion for rehearing in part and substitute this opinion in place of our original opinion.

Appellant shot and killed a man during an argument over a backyard dice game in 2011. He was convicted of three felonies 1 and sentenced to concurrent prison terms, the longest of which is 30 years. He raises four issues in this direct appeal, and we find merit in two.

First, we agree with Appellant that the trial court abused its discretion when it instructed the jury that “if [Appellant] was engaged in an unlawful activity, [his] use of deadly force was not…