Ford v. State
| Decision Date | 03 December 1920 |
| Citation | 80 Fla. 781,86 So. 715 |
| Parties | FORD v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Suwannee County; M. F. Horne, Judge.
John Ford was convicted of breaking and entering a building with intent to commit grand larceny, and he brings error.
Affirmed.
Syllabus by the Court
Indictment for breaking and entering with intent to commit grand larceny held sufficient; indictment need not describe property intended to be stolen. An indictment alleging that the accused did 'unlawfully break and enter a building of another, to wit, a cotton house, the property of C., with intent to commit a felony, to wit, grand larceny,' sufficiently charges the statutory offense, and the defendant could not have been misled or embarrassed by the charge as made. The building is sufficiently described. An intent to commit a felony is alleged. The property intended to be stolen need not be described.
Failure to charge on circumstantial evidence will not cause reversal in absence of request. Where there is sufficient evidentiary basis for charges given, and no material errors of law appear therein, a mere failure to charge on circumstantial evidence will not cause a reversal of a judgment of conviction; no charge on that point having been requested.
Judgment affirmed, where evidence sufficient and errors of procedure harmless. Where the evidence is legally sufficient to sustain the verdict, and errors of procedure, if any, are harmless the judgment will be affirmed.
John F. Harrell, of Live Oak, for plaintiff in error.
Van C Swearingen, Atty. Gen., and D. Stuart Gillis, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Upon an indictment charging that John Ford 'did unlawfully break and enter a building of another, to wit, a cotton house, the property of one J. D. Clinton, with intent to commit a felony, to wit, grand larceny,' he was convicted and took writ of error.
The indictment sufficiently described the building alleged to have been broken and entered. See Rimes v. State, 36 Fla. 90, 18 So. 114. Grand larceny is a felony. It is the larceny of personal property of $20 or more in value. It was not necessary for the indictment to describe the property, the intent to steal which accompanied the breaking and entering. The indictment sufficiently alleged the statutory offense.
The defendant could not be misled by the allegations of the indictment or embarrassed by the allegations in concerting his defense.
No material or harmful errors appear in the charges given. See McDonald v. State, 56 Fla. 74, 47 So. 485, and authorities there cited; Miller v. State, 76 Fla. 518, 80 So. 314. There was sufficient evidentiary basis for the charges given. No charge on circumstantial evidence was requested, and the law of the case did not require such a charge to be given by the court of its own motion.
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