Hampton v. State
Citation | 39 So. 421,50 Fla. 55 |
Parties | HAMPTON et al. v. STATE. |
Decision Date | 27 July 1905 |
Court | United States State Supreme Court of Florida |
Error to Criminal Court of Record, Hillsborough County; Horace C Gordan, Judge.
Hiram J. Hampton and another were convicted of manslaughter, and bring error. Reversed.
Syllabus by the Court
Where the death of a person results from the criminal negligence of a medical practitioner in the treatment of the case, the latter is guilty of manslaughter. This criminal liability is not dependent on whether or not the party undertaking the treatment of the case is a duly licensed practitioner, or merely assumes to act as such, acted with good intent in administering the treatment, and did so with the expectation that the result would prove beneficial. The real question upon which the criminal liability depends in such cases is whether there was criminal negligence. Such criminal negligence is largely a matter of degree, incapable of precise definition, and whether or not it exists to such a degree as to involve criminal liability is to be determined by the jury. Such criminal negligence exists where the physician or surgeon, or person assuming to act as such exhibits gross lack of competency, or gross inattention, or criminal indifference to the patient's safety; and this may arise from his gross ignorance of the science of medicine or surgery and of the effect of the remedies employed through his gross negligence in the application and selection of remedies and his lack of proper skill in the use of instruments, or through his failure to give proper instructions to the patient or his attendants as to the use of the medicines. But where the person treating the case does nothing that a skillful person might not do, and death results merely from an error of judgment on his part, or an inadvertent mistake, he is not criminally liable.
The criminal liability of a physician for the death of his patient, brought about by his gross negligence, carelessness or ignorance, may be established upon an indictment or information predicated upon the general statute defining manslaughter. Rev. St. Fla. 1892, s 2384.
Section 2392, Rev. St. 1892, providing as follows: 'If any physician, while in a state of intoxication, shall without a design to effect death administer any poison, drug or medicine, or do any other act to another person which shall produce the death of such other, he shall be deemed guilty of manslaughter'--does not furnish the only exclusive case where a physician can be held criminally liable for the unintended death of his patient brought about by his gross negligence or ignorance. Nor does said section 2392 render the provisions of the general manslaughter statute (section 2384, Rev. St. 1892) inapplicable to cases of death unintentionally produced by physicians through gross negligence or ignorance, where there is no question of the sobriety or intoxication of such physician; but the provisions of said section 2392 were intended as an addendum to the provisions of the general manslaughter statute, in cases of unintentional death at the hands of physicians, to provide for cases that might not be covered by the general statute.
Where a defect in form, and not of substance, exists in an information or indictment, and no assault is made thereon because thereof, and the defendant, without noticing such defect, pleads to the merits and goes to trial, he thereby waives such defect, and cannot avail himself of it for the first time in an appellate court.
Questions tending to disclose the animus or bias of a witness are proper on cross-examination, and should be allowed.
Medical experts may be allowed to express their opinions as to the time when wounds were inflicted upon a subject living at the time of such wounds.
Where an information charges a physician with negligently pulling out the 'intestines' of a patient, whereby her death was produced, it is competent at the trial to prove under such charge that the larger omentum, the mesentery, or any other organ having its place in the abdominal cavity, was pulled out or removed. The word 'intestines,' when used in an information or indictment, must be given its broadest popular and most comprehensive sense, as denoting everything on the inside, within, internal, inward as opposed to external, and, when applied to the human anatomy, includes the bowels, entrails, viscera, enteron, with all of their annexes and appendages; indeed, everything contained in the abdominal cavity.
Because a cross-examination shakes the credibility, or demonstrates the inaccuracy and unreliability, of the evidence deposed by a witness on his direct examination, this furnishes no reason for striking out such evidence in toto; but, if it is otherwise proper evidence, it, with its exposé by the cross-examination, remains for consideration by the jury at its worth.
A party has no right to cross-examine a witness, except as to facts and circumstances connected with matters testified about on his direct examination. If he desires to inquire into other matters, he must make the witness his own.
The trial judge should not, in his charge to the jury or otherwise, so pointedly aim at the credibility of the defendant as a witness for himself as to impress the jury with the idea that the judge, because of the defendant's interest in the case, questioned his credibility.
The following charge: 'If you have a simple doubt, you are not to acquit, but it must become a reasonable doubt; that is, conformable to reason, which would satisfy a reasonable man, under all the facts and circumstances as testified to in this case'--is misleading, confusing, and erroneous, and should never be given.
Macfarlane & Glen, for plaintiffs in error.
W. H. Ellis, Atty. Gen., for the State.
Hiram J. Hampton, the plaintiff in error, together with one Charles S. Stafford, were jointly informed against in the criminal court of record of Hillsborough county for the crime of manslaughter, alleged to have been committed on May 2d, 1904, in said county. On the joint trial Charles S. Stafford was acquitted, but Hampton was convicted of the crime charged, and from the sentence imposed seeks relief here by writ of error. The information upon which the trial was had is as follows:
'In the Name and by the Authority of the State of Florida.
'In the criminal court of record for the county of Hillsborough, state of Florida, at the adjourned May term, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and four, to wit:
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Keigans v. State
...the defect cannot avail the plaintiff in error for want of a proper assignment. This difficulty did not actually exist in the Hampton Case (Fla.) 39 So. 421. There specific portion of the charge found objectionable formed a distinct 'ground' in the motion for a new trial, which was assigned......
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State v. McMahan, 6385.
...469, 39 Am.Rep. 187; State v. Hardister and Brown, 38 Ark. 605, 42 Am.Rep. 5; Feige v. State, 128 Ark. 465, 194 S.W. 865; Hampton v. State, 50 Fla. 55, 39 So. 421; State v. Tankersley, 172 N.C. 955, 90 S.E. 781, L.R.A.1917C, 533; State v. Lancaster, 208 N.C. 349, 180 S.E. 577; Fitzgerald v.......
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State v. McMahan
...469, 39 Am.Rep. 187; State v. Hardister and Brown, 38 Ark. 605, 42 Am.Rep. 5; Feige v. State, 128 Ark. 465, 194 S.W. 865; Hampton v. State, 50 Fla. 55, 39 So. 421; State v. Tankersley, 172 N.C. 955, 90 S.E. L.R.A.1917C, 533; State v. Lancaster, 208 N.C. 349, 180 S.E. 577; Fitzgerald v. Stat......
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State v. McMahan, 6385.
...469, 39 Am.Rep. 187; State v. Hardister and Brown, 38 Ark. 605, 42 Am.Rep. 5; Feige v. State, 128 Ark. 465, 194 S.W. 865; Hampton v. State, 50 Fla. 55, 39 So. 421; State v. Tankersley, 172 N.C. 955, 90 S.E. 781, L.R.A.1917C, 533; State v. Lancaster, 208 N.C. 349, 180 S.E. 577; Fitzgerald v.......