Davis v. State
| Decision Date | 30 June 1939 |
| Citation | 190 So. 259,138 Fla. 798 |
| Parties | DAVIS v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Escambia County; A. G. Campbell, Judge.
Ben Davis was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he brings error.
Affirmed.
Coe & McLane, of Pensacola, for plaintiff in error.
George Couper Gibbs, Atty. Gen., and Thomas J. Ellis, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
Plaintiff in error, Ben Davis, was indicted by a grand jury of Escambia County, Florida, for the crime of murder in the first degree placed upon trial, and convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree with recommendation for mercy, and was by the trial court sentenced to the state prison at hard labor for the period of his natural life. He has perfected his appeal to this Court and assigns as reversible error the order of the trial court overruling and denying his motion for a new trial. The grounds of the motion for a new trial were: (a) That the verdict was contrary to the evidence; (b) that the verdict is unsupported by sufficient evidence.
The evidence shows that the deceased, W. A. Bowman, on the 19th of August, 1938, was a policeman of the City of Pensacola Florida, and, accompanied by his cousin or nephew, a 13 year old boy, went to the home of Ben Davis, plaintiff in error, a colored man, then living in the City of Pensacola, and made a search around the premises of the plaintiff in error, and at about the time of the completion of the search plaintiff in error came to his home. There was a conversation between the deceased and plaintiff in error, and the two went into a room of the latter's house. There was testimony to the effect that the defendant remarked to the deceased that he was 'getting tired of officers coming around his house', and after an exchange of words the defendant took a pistol from under the mattress of the bed situated in an adjoining room and shot the deceased some three or four times; that the defendant then ran from his home, with his pistol in his hand, got into a car and drove away, and some few months thereafter he was arrested in the State of Alabama and returned to Pensacola for trial.
When the officers of the law reached the scene of the homicide they found the deceased lying on his back, with his gun out of its scabbard and on the floor near his right hand. His body had three bullet wounds and a bullet passed through his right arm. It appears from the testimony that the balls entered from the front, evidencing the fact that the deceased was facing the defendant when receiving the wounds. The 13 year old boy was the only eye witness to the homicide and ran from the building about the time the shots were fired.
The defendant, during the trial of the case, admitted the shooting of the deceased, but claimed or attempted to show self defense. He testified that he and the deceased had been in the whiskey business and the deceased supplied him with whiskey to sell and loaned him money, and on Wednesday prior to the homicide on Friday, the deceased loaned the defendant $10, with the understanding that $20 would be returned to him by the defendant by 8:00 o'clock, August 19, 1938. There was whiskey found on the premises at the time of the homicide and evidence showed that deceased had delivered a ten gallon keg of whiskey to the defendant's home shortly prior to the homicide.
There was offered in evidence a statement dated August 28, 1938, and bearing the signature of the defendant, Ben Davis, in which the details of the entire trouble between him and the deceased were recited. The written statement is substantially the same as the evidence given by the defendant during the trial of the case.
It is asserted by counsel for plaintiff in error in his brief and oral argument at the bar of this Court that the evidence adduced was insufficient to show a premeditation or an intent to kill. The evidence is not clear as to how much time intervened from the time that the defendant returned to his home and found that the deceased there and the time of firing the fatal shots, but it is manifestly certain that the defendant did not appreciate the presence of the deceased at his home, because he remarked that he was 'getting tired of officers coming around' his home. It is not clear what was said and done between the parties after going into the room where...
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...964, 967 (Fla.1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 984, 102 S.Ct. 2257, 72 L.Ed.2d 862 (1982) (citations omitted). See also Davis v. State, 138 Fla. 798, 190 So. 259 (1939); Thompson v. State, 397 So.2d 354 (Fla.3d DCA 1981), modified sub nom., State v. Thompson, 413 So.2d 757 (Fla.1982); Hines v.......
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Thomas v. State
...to Mrs. Anderson during the sexual battery. The jury was free to accept this theory, as it apparently chose to do. See Davis v. State, 138 Fla. 798, 190 So. 259 (1939); Abbott v. State, 334 So.2d 642 (Fla. 3d DCA 1976). As pointed out by appellant, a medium blue ski mask was found in the ho......
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Collins v. State
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Thompson v. State
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