Bowen v. State
| Decision Date | 01 August 1889 |
| Citation | 25 Fla. 645,6 So. 459 |
| Parties | BOWEN v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Error to circuit court, Osceola county; JOHN D. BROOME, Judge.
Indictment for murder.
Syllabus by the Court
1. The guilt of the alleged principal is, under the common law essential to the conviction of one indicted as an accessory before the fact.
2. Where an indictment is against three persons, charging each of them with murder as principal in the first degree, and the others as his accessories before the fact as at common law and one of them is put on trial, and the jury finds him guilty under a count charging him as accessory, and subsequently, but before the entry of the judgment on this verdict, the one charged as principal in the count mentioned is tried and acquitted, judgment cannot be entered against the one found guilty as an accessory.
Mershon & Rodgers, for plaintiff in error.
William B. Lamar, Atty. Gen., for the State.
The indictment charges Mack Bowen, the plaintiff in error, with the murder of one Horace Stalvey, and Richard Rodgers and Henry Bracey as accessories before the fact to such murder. It then charges Bracey with the murder, and Bowen and Rodgers as accessories thereto before the fact, and then charges Rodgers with the murder, and Bracey and Bowen as accessories thereto.
A severance was granted at the request of the defendant.
The trial of Bowen was entered upon, and on the 20th day of last December the jury returned a verdict finding him guilty of 'being an accessory to murder, as charged in the second count,' or, in effect, that he was guilty as an accessory to Bracey as the murderer of Stalvey.
On the 22d day of December Bowen moved for a new trial on the usual grounds, and the motion was denied; and on the 28th day of the month he entered a motion in arrest of judgment on the ground that he had been placed on trial before the other defendants, and found guilty in the manner and form as stated above; and afterwards, on the 26th day of the same month, Bracey had been put on trial, and the jury had returned a verdict of not guilty; and that afterwards the judge, at the request of the state attorney, entered a nolle prosequi as to Rodgers.
This motion was overruled. On the same day the court sentenced Bowen to be hanged. The sentence recites that he had been convicted of being accessory before the fact (by counseling hiring,...
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State v. Peel
...and that in such case the acquittal of the principal operates to acquit the accessory. See McCarty v. State, 44 Ind. 214; Bowen v. State, 25 Fla. 645, 6 So. 459. That rule has no application under a statute which makes the crime of the accessory substantive and independent. 1 Whart.Cr.Law, ......
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Mason v. Bowen
...Select Cases on Ev., p. 677. 3. There was error in the instructions. 57 Ark. 512; 62 Id. 286, 312; 29 Id. 152; 77 Id. 261; 87 Id. 275; 119 Ala. 641; 107 P. 598; 77 129; Ib. 201, 437; 57 Id. 203. The nonproduction of evidence within the power of a party, is a strong presumption that, if prod......
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Killingsworth v. State
... ... against the latter the judgment must be entered against the ... former. It is true that the conviction of the principal is an ... essential prerequisite, except in certain cases, to the ... punishment of the accessory. See Bowen v. State, 25 ... Fla. 645, 6 So. 459; Ex parte Bowen, 25 Fla. 214, 6 So. 65; ... Daughtrey v. State, 46 Fla. 109, 35 So. 397, 110 Am ... St. Rep. 84 ... In the ... Daughtrey Case the accessory was indicted separately from the ... principal, and the latter was alleged to have ... ...
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Thomas v. State
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