Crawford v. State
Decision Date | 22 April 1941 |
Citation | 146 Fla. 729,1 So.2d 713 |
Parties | CRAWFORD v. STATE. |
Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Appeal form Circuit Court, Duval County; DeWitt T. Gray judge.
P. Guy Crews, of Jacksonville, for appellant.
J. Tom Watson, Atty. Gen., and Nathan Cockrell, Asst. Atty. Gen for appellee.
On being convicted of the offense of murder in the first degree, defendant appeals to this Court and presents two questions for our consideration, viz.:
'Does the testimony and evidence when considered as a whole prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the appellant had any premeditated design to affect the death of Bronson Sweat or any other human being at the time of the alleged homidide?'
'2. 'Did the trial jury entirely disregard the Court's charge as to the defendant's right to protect himself after the deceased Bronson Sweat had made threats against the life of the defendant, and threats were heard by the defendant as well as communicated by other witnesses?'
The record discloses that from the evidence submitted the jury was warranted in concluding beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused became enraged because deceased had assumed to have some association with a woman with whom accused was living that just preceding the homicide accused had an altercation with the woman in which he took a large knife (which belonged to deceased) from her and in the altercation cut her slightly on the hand with the knife. That accused then almost immediately went out on the porch of the house in which all parties lived and there found deceased sitting quietly and unarmed in the rocking chair talking to witness Gadsden. That accused made some remark to deceased which Gadsden did not understand. That deceased only said 'huh', whereupon accused assaulted deceased, who was still sitting in the chair, and then and there inflicted a mortal wound of which deceased soon thereafter died. The wound is described by the examining physician as follows:
We see in the record nothing lacking to prove the essential elements of murder in the first degree.
In Ryan v. State, 83 Fla. 610, 92 So. 571, 572, we said:
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