Brannen v. State
| Decision Date | 19 October 1927 |
| Citation | 94 Fla. 656,114 So. 429 |
| Parties | BRANNEN v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Columbia County; Hal W. Adams, Judge.
Raiford Brannen was convicted of perjury, and he brings error.
Reversed.
Syllabus by the Court
Subject to well-defined exceptions, uncontroverted and undiscredited evidence, material and properly admitted, consisting of facts, cannot be wholly disregarded, even though witness was interested party. Ordinarily, and subject to certain well-defined exceptions, uncontroverted and undiscredited evidence, when material, properly admitted, and when it consists of facts (not opinions), cannot be wholly disregarded or arbitrarily rejected, even though the witness giving it is an interested party.
Conflicts in evidence and credibility of witnesses are for jury's determination, legal effect of material and competent evidence, not met by opposing evidence, and not impeached discredited, or controverted, is law question. While conflicts in the evidence, the credibility of witnesses, and the weight of the evidence are for the determination of the jury, still the legal effect of material and competent evidence, not met by opposing evidence, and not impeached discredited, or controverted, is a question of law.
Law encourages correction of erroneous and even intentionally false statements by witness; perjury will not be predicated on erroneous or even intentionally false statements when witness, before submission of cause, fully corrects testimony. The law encourages the correction of erroneous and even intentionally false statements on the part of a witness and perjury will not be predicated upon such statements when the witness, before the submission of the cause, fully corrects his testimony.
Evidence held insufficient to sustain conviction for perjury. In prosecution for perjury, evidence held insufficient to sustain conviction of defendant, modifying testimony alleged to have been perjured, where modified testimony was not alleged to be false and was consistent with and in part corroborated by state's evidence.
Knight & Knight, of Starke, and W. H. Wilson, of Lake City, for plaintiff in error.
J. B Johnson, Atty. Gen., and H. E. Carter, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
This cause comes here upon writ of error to a judgment convicting the defendant below, plaintiff in error here, of the crime of perjury.
The perjury charged in the indictment is, in substance, that in a certain cause theretofore pending in the circuit court of the Third judicial circuit for Columbia county, wherein the state of Florida was plaintiff and one Riley Douglass was defendant, in which the said Douglass was charged with unlawful carnal intercourse with an unmarried female person of previous chaste character, who was at the time of such intercourse under the age of 18 years, in which said cause the defendant herein, Raiford Brannen, was sworn in due form of law as a witness to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth touching the matters in issue in said cause, the said Brannen did willfully, knowingly, falsely, and corruptly during the progress of said trial testify as follows:
'I left before they came out.
The date of the alleged offense of Douglass was charged in the indictment against him as May 9, 1925. The previous chastity of the female involved in that prosecution was, of course, a material issue. It is the contention of the state that the foregoing testimony of this defendant as a witness in the former prosecution against Douglass was material to the issues in that cause and tended to affect the result thereof, in that it was pertinent and material to the question of the previous chastity of the prosecutrix in the former cause. See Fields v. State (Fla.) 114 So. 317, decided at the June term, 1927.
At the trial of this cause the state introduced in evidence a portion of the transcript of the evidence adduced in the prosecution against Douglass from which it appears that this defendant, when duly sworn as a witness in that cause, testified as alleged in the indictment herein. The state further introduced credible and unassailed evidence from which it could be lawfully found or inferred that the defendant could not have observed, on Easter Sunday, 1925, the events recounted by him in the foregoing testimony, because the young woman in question way away from her home on that day from about 9 o'clock a. m. until about 6 o'clock p. m., or later. The state thereupon rested.
Testifying in his own behalf in this cause, the defendant, Brannen, stated that he recalled the testimony given by him as a witness in the prosecution against Douglass, and admitted that he originally testified substantially as set out in the indictment herein. Referring to his testimony in the Douglass Case, the defendant further testified, without objection from the state, as follows:
The offense charged against Douglass was alleged to have been committed on May 9, 1925. In the year 1925, Easter Sunday fell on April 12th. The dates referred to by this defendant in his corrective testimony as a witness in the Douglass Case--the Sunday before or the Sunday after Easter, 1925--were therefore material to the issues in the Douglass Case.
It was neither charged nor proven by the state that the last-quoted testimony of the defendant was also false; in fact, the latter testimony was nowhere alluded to in the state's case, either in the indictment or proof. It was introduced in this cause by the defendant, in explanation and extenuation of his original testimony. The fact that this defendant, when testifying as a witness in the prosecution against Douglass resumed the stand and gave the additional testimony last quoted, is evidenced in this case only by the oral testimony of the defendant himself; but his testimony to that effect is unassailed in this record, and is not controverted, disputed, or otherwise discredited. That this defendant did resume the stand in the...
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...to suppress 'not credible,' he was not free to do so.") (citing Flowers v. State, 106 Fla. 686, 143 So. 612 (1932); Brannen v. State, 94 Fla. 656, 114 So. 429 (1927); Harris v. State, 104 So. 2d 739 (Fla. 2d DCA 1958)). The record in this case does not reveal any evidence that the testimony......
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...to suppress ‘not credible,’ he was not free to do so.”) (citing Flowers v. State, 106 Fla. 686, 143 So. 612 (1932) ; Brannen v. State, 94 Fla. 656, 114 So. 429 (1927) ; Harris v. State, 104 So.2d 739 (Fla. 2d DCA 1958) ). The record in this case does not reveal any evidence that the testimo......
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