Copeland v. State
| Decision Date | 03 November 1909 |
| Citation | 50 So. 621,58 Fla. 26 |
| Parties | COPELAND v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Santa Rosa County; J. E. Wolfe, Judge.
Andrew Copeland was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he brings error.Affirmed.
Syllabus by the Court
To render dying declarations admissible, the trial judge must be fully satisfied that the deceased declarant, at the time of their utterance, knew that his death was imminent and inevitable, and that he entertained no hope of recovery.This absence of all hope of recovery, and appreciation by the deceased of his speedy and inevitable death, is a preliminary foundation that must always be laid to make such declarations admissible.It is a mixed question of law and fact for the judge to decide before permitting the introduction of the declaration itself.It is not necessary that such preliminary foundation should be proven by express utterances of the deceased, but it may be gathered from any circumstance of from all the circumstances of the case.
The settled rule is that to give an opinion on medical questions one may be qualified by study without practice, or by practice without study.
An assignment of error not argued will be treated as abandoned.
A statement by witness that he found a bed 'just like two people had tumbled out of it, * * * sheet down at the foot, * * * and there was where two people had laid,' gave enough facts as to the condition in which witness found the bed to relieve it from the objection of being merely his opinion.
On a trial for murder, a witness after testifying that defendant who for some time had been having illicit intercourse with decedent, resulting in pregnancy, had taken decedent away from her home about nine days before her death, and had been at her home on three several occasions before taking decedent away with him, was permitted to testify, over objection, that on the last occasion defendant's manner was threatening and he then told decedent that he was going to give her one more chance.Held, that the testimony objected to was properly admitted as tending to prove a difference between decedent and defendant, and establish a motive for the crime.
The testimony objected to was properly admitted as tending, in connection with defendant taking decedent away with him, to establish the desire by him of creating an opportunity for the crime.
Within a few minutes after drinking a glass of water given her by defendant, decedent complained of not feeling right, and died within an hour.After the first convulsion, in reply to a proposal to send for a physician, she said: Held to justify the conclusion that decedent knew that her death was imminent and inevitable rendering her statement admissible as a dying declaration.
On a trial for murder, evidence that defendant had come to witness in July, decedent having died the following October, and told him that he was in trouble with decedent, had got her pregnant, and asked witness for advice, was properly admitted as tending to show a motive for the crime, and because of the continuing condition of pregnancy of decedent to her death was not objectionable for remoteness.
On a trial for murder, evidence that a short while before the death of decedent, with whom defendant had been having illicit intercourse, resulting in pregnancy, defendant had stated to witness that he reckoned he would have to build a house, they were going to make him support decedent, and he thought it would be cheaper to build a house than any other way, etc., was admissible to show a motive for the crime.
A physician, though stating he had never had any personal experience with a case of strychnine poisoning, was properly allowed to testify to the symptoms produced by strychnine poisoning, and to the exaggeratedly congested condition of decedent's abdominal viscera, and that the conditions that he found might have been produced by strychnine or ergot poisoning.
COUNSELT. F. West, for plaintiff in error.
Park Trammell, Atty. Gen., for the State.
The plaintiff in error brings here for review by writ of error a judgment of the circuit court of Santa Rosa county convicting him of murder in the first degree, with a recommendation of the jury to mercy, which reduced his sentence to life imprisonment.
There are 31 assignments of error; but we shall discuss those only that are argued here, treating the rest as abandoned.
A state's witness, who had testified to having seen the defendant and the deceased together at an abandoned dwelling house a short while before the deceased died in convulsions from the effect of poison, was permitted, over the defendant's objection, to testify that, on examining this house where he found them together, he found a bed in the house that was 'just like two people had tumbled out of it, * * * sheet down at the foot, * * * and there was where two people had laid.'The objection of the defendant was that it stated the opinion of the witness merely, and not facts of which he had personal knowledge.The admission of this evidence constitutes the first assignment of error.
We find no error here.The evidence was pertinent to the issues.It tended to establish in the defendant an opportunity for the commission of the crime of which he stood charged, and we think enough facts are stated by the witness as to the condition in which he found the bed in question to relieve the witness' answer from the charge of being merely his opinion.
The mother of the deceased, at whose house she died, as a witness for the state, after testifying that the defendant had taken the deceased away from her home about nine days before her death, and had been to her home on three several occasions before taking the deceased away with him, was asked the question: 'State what he did to her and with her on that occasion?'To this question the defendant objected on the ground of immateriality, but the objection was overruled, and the question allowed, to which the witness answered, in effect, that the defendant's manner was threatening, and that he then told the deceased that he was going to give her one more chance.This ruling constitutes the second assignment of error.There was no error here.The evidence objected to tended to prove the existence of a difference between the defendant and the deceased, and tended to establish motive for the crime, and also, in connection with the fact of his taking the deceased away with him from her home, tended to establish the desire by him of creating an opportunity for the crime.
Assignments of error Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 17, and 18 are all discussed together, and involve the propriety of the rulings of the trial court in admitting in evidence the ante mortem declarations of the deceased in the presence of various witnesses for the state.Briefly stated, the rulings involved in these assignments were made under the following circumstances and facts in proof: It was shown that the defendant was a married man; that for some time prior to the death of deceased he had been having illicit sexual intercourse with her, and had gotten her pregnant with child with which she was pregnant at the time of her death; that a short while prior to her death he had endeavored to get her to bind herself by an oath before a justice of the peace not to institute bastardy proceedings against him; that about nine days before her death he went to her mother's house, where she was living, and induced her, to some extent by threats, to go away...
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