Murphy v. State

• Decision Date: 16 March 1893
• Citation: 12 So. 453,31 Fla. 166
• Parties: MURPHY et al. v. STATE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

12 So. 453

31 Fla. 166

MURPHY et al. v. STATE.

Florida Supreme Court

March 16, 1893

Error to circuit court, Gadsden county; W. D. Barnes, Judge.

Pompey Murphy, Henry Espey, Henry Jackson, and two others were indicted for murder in the first degree. The two defendants not named were acquitted. The three defendants named were found guilty as alleged, and bring error. Reversed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

1. A verdict, on an indictment for murder, which merely finds 'the defendants guilty as alleged in the indictment,' and recommends them to the mercy of the court, is fatally insufficient, under section 2383, Rev. St.

2. Section 2383, Rev. St., requiring that a verdict of conviction under an indictment for murder shall state the degree of unlawful homicide of which the accused is found guilty, applies to a trial had after the Revised Statutes took effect, though the offense charged may have been committed before these statutes became operative. Section 32 of article 3 of the constitution does not prohibit such regulation of procedure.

3. Proof of an alibi is sufficient to acquit, if it, considered in connection with all the testimony, raises a reasonable doubt of the presence of the accused at the commission of the crime. It is not necessary that it should satisfy the jury that the crime could not have been committed by the person offering proof of an alibi.

COUNSEL B. S. Liddon and Ed. Owens, for plaintiffs in error.

W. B Lamar, Atty. Gen., for the State.

OPINION

RANEY C.J. I.

The plaintiffs in error and two other persons were indicted at the spring term, 1892, of Gadsden circuit court for murder in the first degree, in killing one Daniel Williams on the 10th day of December, 1890. The five defendants were tried by a jury at the fall term, 1892, of that court; the verdict as to two of them being an acquittal, and that as to the plaintiffs in error being as follows: 'We, the jury find Pompey Murphey, Henry Jackson, and Henry Espey guilty as alleged in the indictment, and recommend them to the mercy of the court. So say we all. J. K. Shaw, Foreman.' And thereupon the judge sentenced each of the three to imprisonment at hard labor in the state penitentiary for the term of his natural life, and to pay the costs of the prosecution.

The first assignment of error urged before us is that the verdict is insufficient to authorize any sentence, in that it does not ascertain the degree of unlawful homicide of which the jury found the defendants guilty. That the verdict is fatally defective in this respect, under section 2383 of the Revised Statutes, considered in connection with section 2353, and in the light of the fact that the trial was subsequent to this revision becoming operative, is fully shown by the opinion in the case of Hall v. State, 12 South. Rep. 449 (filed at this term of this court.) There is nothing in the thirty second section of the third, or legislative, article of the constitution that prevents such regulation of procedure as to antecedent crimes. For...