Metrie v. State
| Decision Date | 03 January 1930 |
| Citation | 125 So. 352,98 Fla. 1228 |
| Parties | METRIE v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Dade County; A. J. Rose, Judge.
John Metrie was convicted of murder in the second degree, and he brings error. Reversed for a new trial.
Syllabus by the Court
Second degree murder verdict held not sustained, where defendant's uncontradicted testimony, though construed most unfavorably to defendant, made case of manslaughter only. Where, in a prosecution for murder in the first degree the defendant takes the stand as a witness and gives an account of the killing in which he admits giving the fatal wound to the deceased, but states it to have been under circumstances which, if true, would have justified the act or, upon the most unfavorable view, made a case of manslaughter only, and there was no fact or circumstance in evidence nor testimony of witness to contradict the defendant's account of the transaction, a verdict of murder in the second degree will not be sustained.
Chas. S. Loden, R. B. Schallern, and George B. Davis, all of Miami, for plaintiff in error.
Fred H. Davis, Atty. Gen., and H. E. Carter, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
In this case defendant in the court below, plaintiff in error here, was indicted charged with murder in the first degree. He was convicted of murder in the second degree.
The altercation out of which this prosecution grew appears to have been the result of the deceased having alienated the affections of the wife of the accused from the accused. The difficulty started and ended on the public streets of the city of Miami, but the record discloses no witnesses to the beginning of the difficulty or to the infliction of the fatal wounds, except the accused and the deceased.
There is no conflict in the testimony, and the version of the beginning of the difficulty and the infliction of the wounds resulting in the death of the deceased as told by the accused as a witness in his own behalf is uncontradicted, and was the only evidence before the jury as to these facts. In Holton v. State, 87 Fla. 65, 99 So. 244, this court, speaking through Mr. Justice Ellis, say:
'Where, in a prosecution for murder in the first degree, the defendant takes the stand as a witness and gives an account of the killing, in which he admits giving the fatal wound to the deceased, but states it to have been under...
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