Cruce v. State
| Decision Date | 23 March 1922 |
| Citation | 84 Fla. 191,93 So. 134 |
| Parties | CRUCE v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
On Rehearing, August 8, 1922.
Jack Cruce was convicted of murder, and he appeals.
Reversed on rehearing.
(Syllabus by the Court.)
On Rehearing.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Taylor County; M. F Horne, Judge.
W. P Chavous, of Mayo, and B. J. Hamrick, of Monticello, for appellant.
Rivers Buford, Atty. Gen., and J. B. Gaines, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The indictment herein sufficiently charges murder in the first degree, alleged to have been committed 'unlawfully and from a premeditated design to effect the death of' the person killed, who was a man, and of course a human being, within the contemplation of the statutory definition of murder. Chapter 8470, Acts of 1921.
At the trial the court gave, among others, the following charges:
Though the defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree, the mere omission of the word 'design' after the word 'premeditated' in the eighth charge is not on the whole record harmful or reversible error.
The word 'design' is a part of the statutory definition of murder in the first degree, but the law does not expressly require the trial judge to give the statutory definition in his charge to the jury. In the eighth charge the court refers to the legal result of a finding on the evidence as stated, and uses the words 'premeditated on his part to effect the death of the deceased,' which reasonably should have conveyed to the minds of the jury the legal proposition that, under the allegations of the indictment, premeditation to effect the death of the deceased was essential to a finding of murder in the first degree, particularly when the next charge uses the words 'premeditated design to effect the death' in differentiating murder in the second degree from murder in the first degree. The evidence so clearly establishes a homicide from a premeditated design to effect the death of the deceased that the jury could not have been misled by the mere omission of the word 'design' from the eighth charge.
The charges relative to self-defense have sufficient bases in the evidence, and they are not erroneous as matter of law.
As the evidence, independently of the dying declaration, amply supports the verdict, and no material errors of law or of procedure appear by the transcript, the judgment should be and is affirmed.
I cannot concur in the decision in this case.
Jack Cruce, the plaintiff in error, in under sentence of death. The omission of the word 'design' in the eighth instruction makes its meaningless.
It begs the question to hold that the jury could supply the word 'design.' If that is so, the word 'premeditated' could also be left out, and the jury could supply it. By the same reasoning, the entire charge on 'premeditated design' might be omitted, and no error be committed, upon the doctrine that the jurors knew that a premeditated design to effect the death of the deceased is necessary to be established before they could find a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. This doctrine could be so extended as to do away with instructions altogether.
Human life is too dear and too sacred to be taken lightly. Courts should show a scrupulous regard for human life, and teach by example that it must not be lightly taken.
I think at least two serious reversible errors were committed, in that:
(1) The court failed to instruct the jury that to constitute murder from a premeditated design on his part to effect the death of the deceased.
(2) Alleged dying declarations were admitted in evidence, in violation of the principle under which such declarations are allowed to be introduced. This was highly prejudicial on the trial of a person for murder, and might easily have been the controlling factor in the verdict of guilty rendered by the jury.
Even if we should consider that there was evidence upon which we as jurors would have found a verdict of guilty, we cannot say that without this testimony, and with a proper instruction on the question of premeditated design, the jury would have so found.
On Rehearing.
A petition for rehearing was granted in this case because the court desired a fuller discussion upon the effect of the omission of the word 'design' from the charge of the court defining the crime of murder in the first degree. The jury were directed to find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, if they should find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the 'defendant unlawfully killed the deceased at the time and place and by the means charged in the indictment, and that he did so of and from a premeditated on his part to effect the death of the deceased.' The word 'design,' which should have immediately followed the word 'premeditated' in the charge, was omitted.
Presumably the charge was given literally as it was written. The statute (Rev. Gen. St. 1920, § 6092) requires the charge in a capital case to be wholly in writing, and this court in Morrison v. State, 42 Fla. 149, 28 So. 97, said the correct rule is 'it should be given literally as it is written.'
It appears from the record that the defendant duly excepted to the giving of the charge quoted. There is no other instruction in the record defining murder in the first degree. Design or intent to effect the death of the person killed or some other person is an essential element in the crime of murder as defined by the statute. Rev. Gen. St. 1920, § 5035. And while the word 'design' seems to be a necessary concomitant of the word 'premeditated' as used in the instruction, so that the latter word cannot be pronounced without suggesting the former, one can hardly think of the act of premeditation without also thinking of intention or design as related to it, yet it is not for the court to set at naught the words of the statute, and assert that one on trial for the capital crime of murder is not denied a fair trial according to the forms and procedure of law, when the offense with which he is charged in the indictment is incorrectly defined by the court in an instruction to the jury.
The case should be reversed, on the authority of Morrison v. State, supra.
The judgment is reversed.
Substantial rights of citizens should not be whittled away. The tendency even of such process should be guarded against. The priceless privilege of an orderly trial in accordance with law should not be impaired by resorting to inferences of implications that mandatory statutory provisions have been complied with when the record indicates the reverse. Considerations such as...
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Mckenna v. State
...This court has reversed cases in the past for less objectionable omissions in instructions to juries in criminal cases. See Cruce v. State, 84 Fla. 191, 93 So. 134. I no contention to the effect that the presumption of innocence is in the nature of evidence, and on this point I am in perfec......
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Cruce v. State
...reversed on rehearing because of an erroneous definition of murder contained in the trial court's charge to the jury. See Cruce v. State, 84 Fla. 191, 93 So. 134. Upon second trial the defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree. The first assignment of error rests upon the order......
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...1849, 2 Fla. 476; Dixon v. State, 1869--1870--1871, 13 Fla. 636; Morrison v. State, 1900, 42 Fla. 149, 28 So. 97; and Cruce v. State, 1922, 84 Fla. 191, 93 So. 134. It also provides an unquestioned verbatim record of the charge to the Section 918.10(2), as now written requires charges in ca......
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