Davis v. State
| Citation | 44 Fla. 32,32 So. 822 |
| Parties | DAVIS v. STATE. |
| Decision Date | 01 April 1902 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Florida |
Error to circuit court, Suwannee county; John F. White, Judge.
Engene M. Davis was convicted of murder, and brings error. Affirmed.
Syllabus by the Court
1. Under the laws of Florida the circuit court of the county where the fatal blow has been struck has jurisdiction to try the homicide, though the death may occur in another county or state.
2. The proceedings and judgment of the county judge's court adjudging a party insane under the provisions of chapter 4357, Laws 1895, are not admissible in evidence upon the trial of a criminal charge against the party therein adjudged to be insane, where insanity is relied upon as a defense to such charge.
3. It is the province of the trial court to determine whether or not a witness offered as an expert has such qualifications and special knowledge as to make his opinions in answer to hypothetical questions admissible, and the decision of such trial judge is conclusive upon the question unless it appears from the evidence to have been erroneous, or to have been founded upon some error in law. The qualifications necessary to enable witnesses to give expert or opinion evidence are prescribed as well as ascertained by rules of law, and, if these rules are violated by the trial judge, his action is subject to review by the appellate court.
4. The rule laid down in McNaghten's Case, 10 Clark & F. text pp. 209-211, as to insanity as a defense to crime, adopted and approved. The phase of insanity commonly known as the 'irresistible impulse' doctrine is not recognized in Florida, and a charge announcing such doctrine to be a defense in homicide here is erroneous, but is not reversible error in this case, as it tended to favor the accused, and not to prejudice him.
5. Sanity being the normal condition of man, when charged with crime he is presumed to be sane, and the mere fact of the commission of the crime is not in itself sufficient to overcome this presumption.
6. It is within the discretion of the trial court to permit the introduction of evidence by the state after the conclusion of the defendant's case, though the same may not be strictly in rebuttal, if it was admissible in the main case; and unless such discretion is abused to the detriment of the defendant, it will not be ground of reversal.
COUNSEL M. F. Horne, J. N. Stripling, C.J. Hardee, and C A. Hardee, for plaintiff in error.
William B. Lamar, Atty. Gen., for the State.
This cause was referred by the court to its commissioners for investigation, and they have reported that the judgment ought to be affirmed.
The plaintiff in error was convicted of murder in the second degree in the circuit court of Suwannee county, and brings his case to this court by writ of error.
I. The first assignment of error is that 'the court erred in denying the motion of the defendant to strike the evidence of C. S. Brown as to the death of the deceased.' The witness was a doctor, and testified that the death of Dr. W. S Airth, for whose killing plaintiff in error was on trial, was caused by a wound from a pistol shot inflicted by the accused in Suwannee county, Fla.; that after the shooting, the deceased, then still living, desired to be taken to Atlanta Ga., and witness started for Atlanta with him the same night, having put him under the influence of an opiate; that they reached Atlanta next day, and took deceased to a sanitarium, where he was examined, and it was decided that it was not necessary to attempt an operation, as he could not possibly recover; that he died in Atlanta the next day after arriving there, and his body was embalmed, and brought back to Live Oak for burial. The bill of exceptions shows that 'defendant's counsel moves the court to strike out all the eivdence of this witness as to the death of the deceased upon the ground that the proof does not correspond with the allegations of the indictment, which said motion was overruled by the court, to which ruling defendant, by his counsel, excepted.' The only ground of error asserted in the briefs of counsel for plaintiff in error is that 'the allegation that he then and there died is equivalent to an allegation that he died in Suwannee county, Florida,' and it could not be supported by proof of death in Atlanta, Ga. But the indictment contains no such allegation. It charges that the mortal wounds were inflicted in Suwannee county, Fla., 'from which two said mortal wounds the said W. S. Airth did languish and live until the 1st day of July, A. D. 1900, on which said last-mentioned day the said W. S. Airth, of and from the two mortal wounds aforesaid, did die.' The place of the death of the deceased is not stated in the indictment. The circuit court of Suwannee county had jurisdiction of the crime, if committed in that county, although consummated in another state. Rev. St. § 2360; Roberson v. State, 42 Fla. 212, 28 So. 427; Smith v. State, 42 Fla. 605, 28 So. 758.
II. The second assignment of error is that 'the court erred in denying and overruling the motion of defendant's counsel to strike the evidence of Mr. Bevans so far as the same relates to Mrs. Davis on her deathbed, to the effect that she said in the presence of her husband that the medicine that Dr. Airth had given her was hastening her death.' The motion made was to withdraw the testimony of the witness Bevans, and not to strike it as stated in the assignment. This witness was the father-in-law of the defendant, and was introduced as a witness on the part of the state. He testified that Dr. Airth, the deceased, was the physician who attended Mrs. Davis in her last illness prior to her death on the 21st or 22d of November, 1899, and was asked this question: 'Did you hear her make any remark prior to her death as to the treatment Dr. Airth was giving her?' to which he replied, 'I heard her say that Dr. Airth's medicine was carrying her off;' that this remark was made perhaps six or eight hours before her death, and was made more than once. On cross-examination he testified that the accused was present when remarks of this character were made. No objection was made to the questions propounded to the witness at the time of his examination, nor until the testimony of the state had closed. The ground of the motion finally made was that the testimony was impertinent. It also appears that counsel for the accused put in evidence substantially the same fact by another witness introduced for the defense. Waiving the point that the objection came too late, and also that by introducing evidence of like import the accused has no right to object, we are of the opinion that the testimony sought to be withdrawn was pertinent. It appeared that the accused, in repeated conversations with parties in reference to the death of his wife, stated that the deceased had given her medicine which she stated had caused her death. On one occasion a short time before the shooting of the deceased, in conversation with W. W. Hawkins, the accused stated that deceased had caused the death of his wife, and he would kill deceased if he crossed his path; and at the very time of the killing the accused said the deceased had killed his wife, and he had killed deceased for it. The fact that the wife of the accused, just before her death, stated in his presence that the medicine administered by the deceased was carrying her off, was pertinent as tending to show motive for the killing, and there was no error in admitting it on this theory on the part of the state.
III. The third assignment of error is that 'the court erred in sustaining the objections of the state attorney to the introduction and reading in evidence the copy of the petition, order appointing a committee, the report of the committee, and the judgment of the county judge's court based thereon; the same being a copy of all the proceedings in a cause wherein Eugene M. Davis was adjudged insane on June 30, 1900.' The papers mentioned in this assignment of error were offered in evidence by defendant upon the statement of his counsel that they were offered 'for the purpose of establishing the fact that he was insane at the time of those proceedings of June 30th.' The proceedings were had on the day after the homicide, and were based upon the provisions of chapter 4357 of the act approved May 29, 1895, the sixth section of which provides that the provisions of the act shall not apply to persons charged with criminal offenses and who plead insanity. This court is of opinion that the circuit court was right in excluding the proffered evidence for the reason that under the section mentioned proceedsings had in pursuance of that act cannot be used in evidence upon the trial of a criminal charge against the person adjudged therein to be insane, where insanity is relied upon as a defense upon such trial, as was the case here.
IV. The fourth assignment of error is based upon defendant's objection to a question propounded by the state to the witness Conner, inquiring whether, at the time the proceedings mentioned in the preceding paragraph of this opinion were had, it was not a well-known notorious fact, and the talk of the town, that defendant had on the preceding night shot the deceased. The court permitted the question upon the theory that the answer would tend to show that defendant was charged with a criminal offense at the time the proceedings were instituted, within the meaning of the sixth section of the act above referred to. The fact that defendant did, at the time stated in the question and answer, shoot the deceased, was proven by eyewitnesses, was not contested at the trial, and there is nowhere in the evidence a suggestion or intimation to the contrary. Defendant...
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