Lee v. State
| Decision Date | 26 June 1928 |
| Citation | 96 Fla. 59 |
| Parties | MARY LEE, Plaintiff in Error, v. THE STATE OF FLORIDA, Defendant in Error. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
En Banc.
Paul Carter, of Marianna, for Plaintiff in Error.
Fred H. Davis, Attorney General, and H. E. Carter, Assistant Attorney General for the State.
STRUM, J.—Upon an indictment charging murder in the first degree, plaintiff in error, who will hereinafter be referred to as the defendant, was convicted of manslaughter.
Amongst other things, it is contended on writ of error that the corpus delicti is not established by the evidence; and that the verdict is contrary to and unsupported by the evidence.
The indictment charged that the defendant killed Marion Stanley, alias Mary Lee Stafford, by striking deceased in and upon her face and mouth with her (defendant's) fists and hands, which striking occurred near a certain creek in which was a great quanity of water, which said striking caused the deceased to fall into the creek after which the defendant siezed deceased with her hands and then and there held the deceased under the water in said creek until she then and there choked, suffocated and drowned.
The state's evidence establishes that the defendant is a negro woman and the deceased a white woman and that both were confined in the comity convict camp of Calhoun County. During the morning of September, 29, 1925, the body of the deceased was found in the water of Stafford's Creek about 150 or 200 yards from the convict camp. Death had been caused by drowning. It further appears from the evidence that the deceased, in company with a negro girl, Bertha Lee, aged about eleven years, and the step-daughter of the defendant, left the convict camp ostensibly to go in bathing in the creek during the afternoon before the body was found the next morning. The deceased was clad only in a night gown. When they arrived at the creek, Luther Bodiford, a young white man, was seated on the bank of the creek, and the deceased on arriving at the creek took a seat beside Bodiford. J. B. Nichols, a State's witness who was working around the convict camp, left the camp on a mission which took him across the creek between four and five o'clock in the afternoon. As he crossed the creek, which was a small one, he saw the deceased and Bodiford on the bank of the creek at a point near where deceased body was found next morning. Bodiford was lying down, and the deceased was sitting nearby. When this witness left the convict camp, the defendant was at the camp. Within a short while the witness returned again to the convict camp by approximately the same route but did not see the deceased ,or Bodiford at the creek as he passed on his return. It was then late in the afternoon, "getting on toward sundown." When this witness returned to the camp, the defendant was there.
While the deceased and Bodiford were at the creek, they were visited by two other young men, who stayed about five minutes. At this time, the deceased and Bodiford were standing near each other in the edge of the water and the deceased had in her hand a quart fruit jar which was about half full of a white liquid. The deceased was addicted to the use of cocaine, morphine and whiskey, "anything she could get hold of."
When the body of the deceased was found, Bodiford was placed in jail and testified at the inquest, and again before the grand jury, that he hid in the bushes near the creek and saw the defendant strike the deceased in the mouth and jump astride her and drown her. Thereupon the defendant was indicted for murder in the first degree. Boniford admitted in his testimony given at this trial that his former testimony was false in its entirety, and that his reason for giving the original testimony was that he was told "that was the way for me to get out." Bodiford further testified at this trial that he left the creek about the same time as the other two men. So far as the record discloses, Bodiford was the last person who saw deceased alive.
There was no evidence of a struggle around the spot where the body was found or elsewhere in the vicinity of the creek. No one testified to hearing any outcry, though the convict camp and at least one dwelling house were near by. The body of the deceased was carefully examined, when found, by a member of the coroner's jury and by a practicing physician. These witnesses both testified that death was due to drowning; that there were no brutal bruises or wounds on the lips or face and that the body bore no finger marks, bruises, scratches or any other marks of violence of any nature, except that deceased had two teeth broken out, one of which appeared to be an old break and looked like a tooth that had once had a crown on it, while the other tooth, one of the front incisors, was broken off even with the gum and appeared to be recently broken as there was a little bloody water around the root. There was also a small minor scratch on the inside of the upper lip, "nothing more than a mere scratch," about the size of a field pea, and of no considerable depth, "a mere surface wound." Other than that, there was no evidence of a blow or other violence. The scratch appears to be "freshly broken." The doctor testified that he would not swear deceased received a blow in the mouth; that the tooth could have been broken by the body being driven up against a stump or log in the creek, but he thought that would have been "highly improbable"; but that it would be "entirely probable" that she might have broken it by falling. The doctor inclined to the opinion, however, that the tooth was broken off before death, though he would not positively testify to that effect.
The water in the creek was about fourteen or sixteen inches deep where the head of the body was found, and about two and one-half feet deep at the feet. The body was found with one knee and one elbow in the sand of the creek bed and the other arm extended in the direction of her feet. The body was nude when found, and was some forty or fifty yards down stream from the place where people usually went in bathing. The night gown was found "wadded up" about twenty feet up stream from the body, both the body and the gown being on the down stream side of a small obstruction or "drift," composed of limbs and trash, situated between the place where swimming usually occurred and the place where the body was found. The testimony indicates that on account of this obstruction the body and the gown could not have drifted from the place usually used for swimming to the place where the body and gown were found.
There is evidence that the defendant changed clothes during the late afternoon or early evening of the day in question, the dress which she first wore being later found in the bottom of a wash tub with some other clothes. This circumstance is of little significance, however, when it is considered that there were no indications of a struggle, and no marks of violence upon the body which would likely result in blood shed or other stains. And the change was not made until after defendant had reported that deceased was missing. There is further evidence, admitted over the defendant's...
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