Fuller v. State
Decision Date | 09 November 1926 |
Citation | 92 Fla. 873,110 So. 528 |
Parties | FULLER v. STATE. |
Court | Florida Supreme Court |
En Banc.
Error to Circuit Court, Dade County; Will H. Price, Judge.
T. E Fuller was convicted of second degree murder, and he brings error.
Reversed and a new trial granted.
Syllabus by the Court
Where evidence identifying accused as guilty party is not satisfactory, conviction will be reversed and new trial granted. This court is very reluctant to interfere with the verdict of a jury on the facts, but in a conviction for murder in the second degree, where the evidence as to the identity of the accused as being the guilty party is not satisfactory, a new trial will be granted.
Effie Knowles, of Miami, for plaintiff in error.
J. B. Johnson, Atty. Gen., and Roy Campbell, Asst. Atty. Gen., for thE state.
Plaintiff in error, hereinafter called the defendant, was convicted of murder in the second degree. On writ of error, the principal contention is the sufficiency of the evidence to establish the identity of the defendant as the perpetrator of the homicide.
The evidence in this case is lengthy and in many essentials unique. The possibility of the occurrence of another case on substantially the same facts as are here involved is too remote to justify a review of the evidence.
In considering this case, we are mindful of the oft-repeated rule that in a criminal prosecution a verdict of guilty will not ordinarily be disturbed upon the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence, where there is some evidence from which all the elements of the crime may have been legally found or inferred, and it does not appear that the jury was not governed by the evidence adduced at the trial. Exceptions to this rule, however, have been previously recognized by this court in criminal cases where the evidence as to the identity of the accused as being the guilty party was not satisfactory, and also where the verdict was not in accord with the manifest justice of the case. See Platt v. State, 65 Fla. 253, 61 So. 502; Nims v State, 70 Fla. 530, 70 So. 565; Davis v. State, 76 Fla. 179, 79 So. 450; Ming v. State, 89 Fla. 280, 103 So. 618. This court has also said that:
'The verdict of a jury will not be set aside on evidence of facts complicated and contradictory and which require and investigation into the character and credit of witnesses whose testimony it is necessary to compare and weigh; nor will the verdict be set aside as against the weight of the evidence unless it preponderates so strongly against the reverdict that the court cannot conclude such verdict was the result of a due consideration of the evidence; but a verdict that is clearly against the evidence should be set aside.' Armstrong v. State, 30 Fla. 170, 11 So. 618, 17 L. R. A. 484.
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