Latham v. State

• Decision Date: 08 November 1924
• Citation: 88 Fla. 310,102 So. 551
• Parties: LATHAM v. STATE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

102 So. 551

88 Fla. 310

LATHAM v. STATE.

Florida Supreme Court, Division B.

November 8, 1924

Rehearing Denied Nov. 26, 1924.

Error to Circuit Court, Washington County; D. J. Jones, Judge.

O. E Latham was convicted of being accessory before the fact in burning personal property insured against loss by fire, with intent to injure the insurer, and he brings error.

Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

Establishing prior conviction of principal is necessary before judgment of guilty as accessory before fact. Establishment of the prior conviction of the alleged principal is an essential prerequisite to the entry of a valid judgment of guilt against one indicted as accessory before the fact.

Intent to injure insurer must be alleged and proved in prosecution for burning with such intent. Under the statute (section 5111, Rev. Gen. Stat.) denouncing the crime of burning property insured against loss or damage by fire with intent to injure the insurer, the alleged 'intent to injure the insurer' is an element of the crime necessary to be alleged and proved.

Verdict of guilty of burning premises to injure insurer sustained as to accessory before fact; principal's ignorance of corporate name of insurer held not to render evidence as to accessory's burning property to injure insurer insufficient. To an indictment charging B. as principal and L. as accessory before the fact to the burning of certain described property, insured against loss or damage by fire with intent to injure the insurance company named in the indictment as insurer, B. entered a plea of guilty as charged and was adjudged guilty. Upon a trial of L. on a plea of not guilty, there was a verdict of guilty as charged, and he was adjudged guilty by the court. On writ of error it is contended that in the trial of the accessory the evidence is not sufficient to sustain the verdict. Held, that the plea of guilty and the adjudication of guilt of the alleged principal, confessing the intent as well as the overt act of burning, together with the evidence of the principal admitting the burning and stating that he was promised by the accessory a stated sum of money for setting fire to the property if he, the accessory, got his insurance, is sufficient basis for the verdict of guilty as charged, and that the principal's admitted ignorance of the corporate name of the insurance company which issued the policy on the burned property does not render the evidence insufficient.

COUNSEL

Carter & Carter, of Sarasota, and A. D. Carmichael of Chipley, for plaintiff in error.

Rivers Buford, Atty. Gen., and Marvin C. McIntosh, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

OPINION

WEST J.

The writ of error in this case brings up for review a judgment of conviction of plaintiff in error upon an indictment charging him as accessory before the fact to the felony of burning personal property insured against loss by fire, with intent to injure the insurer. For convenience the indictment, omitting formal parts, is reproduced here:

'The grand jurors of the state of Florida, impaneled and sworn to inquire and true presentments make in and for the body of the county of Washington, upon their oaths to present that Hilton Barefield, of the county of Washington and state of Florida, on the 3d day of June in the year of our Lord 1921, in the county and state aforesaid, then and there being, did then and there set fore to and burn 135,000 feet, board measure, of lumber, a more particular description of which said lumber is to the grand jurors unknown, and which said lumber at the time of the burning thereof was then and there the property of J. E. Latham and O. E. Latham, a copartnership and firm trading and doing business as J. E. Latham Lumber Company, and which said lumber was then and there insured in the sum of $5,000 against loss and damage by fire, by the Globe & Rutgers Fire Insurance Company, a corporation, he, the said Hilton Barefield, then and there having an intent to injure the said Globe & Rutgers Fire Insurance Company, a corporation, by burning said lumber, which said lumber was then and there the property of said firm of J. E. Latham Lumber Company. And the grand jurors aforesaid do further present that O. E. Latham was then and there on the 3d day of June, 1921, then and there personally present before the burning of said lumber, counseling, advising, encouraging, abetting and advising the said Hilton Barefield the aforesaid acts to do and commit, with intent to injure the said Globe & Rutgers Fire Insurance Company, contrary to the form of the statute in such cases made and provided, to the evil example of all others in like case offending, and against the peace and dignity of the state of Florida.'

Previous to the trial of plaintifff in error, the principal had entered a...