Ekman v. State

• Decision Date: 30 May 1935
• Citation: 161 So. 716,120 Fla. 24
• Parties: EKMAN et al. v. STATE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

161 So. 716

120 Fla. 24

EKMAN et al. v. STATE.

Florida Supreme Court, Division B.

May 30, 1935

Error to Circuit Court, Broward County; George W. Tedder, Judge.

Carl Ekman and others were convicted of larceny of a cow, and they bring error.

Affirmed.

COUNSEL Roach & Hoyl, of Fort Lauderdale, for plaintiff in error.

Cary D Landis, Atty. Gen., and Roy Campbell, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

OPINION

BUFORD Justice.

The writ of error brings for review judgment of conviction of the offense of larceny of a cow.

Plaintiffs in error only question the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict.

The unlawful taking, killing, and converting of the property by the defendants is fully established; in fact, the defendants admitted taking and killing the cow without any pretense of right or ownership. Their theory of defense was that they were so drunk by the use of intoxicating liquor that they did not know or remember anything about the details or butchering and taking the cow away in a truck and were, by reason of such intoxicated condition, incapable of forming or entertaining the criminal intent to commit the act. Defendants evidently hoped to bring themselves apparently within the rule stated in the case of Garner v State, 28 Fla. 113, 9 So. 835, 29 Am. St. Rep. 232.

The record shows that the defendants left the head of the cow with a metal tag in one ear and an 'S' brand on the jaw in the marsh a short distance from where they butchered the cow, and that one of the defendants remembered enough about the matter to take officers to the scene and show them where the head had been thrown in the marsh. There the head was found.

The court, amongst other things, charged the jury as follows:

'I charge you further that where a specific intent is required to make an act an offense, such as in the charge preferred against the defendants on trial, the doing of the act does not raise a presumption that it was done with that specific intent. The intent must be established from the facts and circumstances established by satisfactory evidence during the trial of the case.

'The court charges you, gentlemen, that one of the defenses in this case is that these defendants were intoxicated to such an extent that they were incapable of forming the intent. In cases of which a specific or particular intent is an essential or constituent element of the offense intoxication, though voluntary,

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