Pocketknife burglar loses on appeal
The Associated Press
May 28, 2004
TALLAHASSEE ยท In a case once considered by the nation's highest court, the state Supreme Court Thursday again rejected the appeal of a burglar who received a life sentence because he had a pocketknife when he broke into an empty restaurant.
The court rejected Clyde Bunkley's claim, just as it had in November 2002.
A year ago the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Florida's high court to take another look at the case after Bunkley, representing himself, appealed his armed burglary conviction. He has claimed Florida law exempts common pocketknives from the definition of a weapon and that he should have been charged with simple burglary.
Armed burglary is a first-degree felony punishable by life in prison; simple burglary is third-degree felony punishable by up to five years.
Bunkley, 47, admits having the pocketknife when he broke into a closed Western Sizzlin' Restaurant in Sarasota in 1986. Bunkley, who had 15 prior convictions, was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to life.
Florida law has long excluded pocketknives from the definition of weapons, but the state Supreme Court didn't interpret the law until 1997.
The state court in 2002 said Bunkley should not benefit retroactively from the decision that common pocketknives are not deadly weapons.
Florida prosecutors have argued it would be difficult to go through old cases involving pocketknives to determine which sentences to change.
