Hanvey v. State

Deen, Presiding Judge,

concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I concur fully with the majority opinion, except for its reversal of Hanvey’s conviction for making terroristic threats. In that regard, I concur with Judge Beasley’s partial dissent.

In this case, late one night Hanvey pleaded with the 76-year-old victim to let him into her house so that he could call for an ambulance for his sick mother, who was a friend of the victim. The victim’s trusting and helpful response was greeted by Hanvey’s vicious assault and rape of the victim, during which he held a pillow over her face so that she could barely breathe. He left her alive but bloody and bruised, after threatening to kill her and burn her house if she ever called the police.

Hanvey’s cruel and inhumane attack on this elderly woman who was doing no harm to anyone was substantial. “His conduct toward her was reprehensible, and barely rises above that which is said to have prevailed among his remote forebears when they swung by their tails from limb to limb in the far reaches of the jungle enforcing a crude discipline by tooth and claw.” Fekany v. Fekany, 160 S. 192 (Fla. 1935). (Emphasis supplied.) While a portion of the asserted ancestry assessments in Fekany may be allegorical allegations, the bloody, brutal body-batterings of “tooth and claw” in the instant case are literal fact. This evidence authorized a rational trier of fact to find Hanvey guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of all the offenses charged, including making terroristic threats. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979).