Abstract
This Note examines the strange history of the year-and-a-day rule from the rule’s birth to its death and then to its unexpected resurrection. In the process, this Note discusses the approach that other courts have taken to problems similar to those arising in the Wells case and sheds light on the course that the Florida courts may take on this bizarre issue.
This Note presents the Wells case only as an illustration of the legal issues entwined with the abolition of the year-and-a-day rule. Specifically, the Wells case shows how, once abolished, the rule managed to find its way back into the Florida courts on an ex post facto argument. It seems certain that the year-and-a-day rule will not go down without a fight in Florida, and the rule will remain at the center of litigation in many other jurisdictions.
Recommended Citation
Emily S. Wilbanks,
The Murder Rule That Just Won't Die: The Abolished Year-and-a-Day Rule Continues to Haunt the Florida Courts,
60 Fla. L. Rev.
735
(2008).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol60/iss3/6