Pittman v. State

• Decision Date: 10 April 1906
• Citation: 41 So. 385,51 Fla. 94
• Parties: PITTMAN v. STATE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

41 So. 385

51 Fla. 94

PITTMAN v. STATE.

Florida Supreme Court, Division A.

April 10, 1906

Error to Circuit Court, Holmes County; Francis B. Carter, Judge.

J. T Pittman was convicted of forgery, and brings error. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

Chapter 5132, p. 71, of the Laws of 1903, prescribing the requisites to be complied with by parties charged with crime in applications for the procurement of witnesses for their defense at the cost of the county, is not in conflict with or violative of either section 11 or section 14 of the Declaration of Rights of the state Constitution of 1885. And when the cost of the procurement of such witnesses is initiatorily proposed to be thrown upon the county, a sound judicial discretion is vested in the trial judge to determine whether or not the statutory requirements have been properly complied with, and also to determine the bona fides of such application, and an appellate court will not disturb the action of the trial judge upon such application, unless an abuse of this judicial discretion is clearly made to appear.

Applications under chapter 5132, p. 71, of the Laws of 1903, for the procurement of witnesses, at the cost of the county, for the defense of parties charged with crime, should be seasonably made at the earliest reasonable opportunity, and not withheld until the case is actually called for trial.

The sixth amendment to the federal Constitution has reference only to powers exercised by the government of the United States, and not to those of the states.

In criminal as well as in civil cases an application for a continuance is addressed to the sound judicial discretion of the trial court, and the denial of such a motion will not be reversed by an appellate court, unless there has been a palpable abuse of this judicial discretion, which must be clearly and affirmatively made to appear in the bill of exceptions; the rule being that motions for a continuance in criminal cases are to be even more closely scanned than in civil cases, because of the greater temptation to delay.

Where there are assignments of error in a criminal case which are not argued, but merely repeated and insisted upon in the brief of plaintiff in error, an appellate court is not required to do more than read the record carefully in connection with such assignments, and, if it discovers no plain or glaring error prejudicial to the plaintiff in error under such assignments, the judgment will not be reversed because of such assigned errors.

An appellate court will not consider any grounds of objection to the admissibility of evidence, except such as were made in the court below; the plaintiff in error being confined to the specific grounds of objection made by him in the trial court.

The trial court is authorized to regulate the order of the introduction of evidence, and its discretion in this matter will only be interfered with by an appellate court when a clear abuse thereof is made to appear.

If evidence, apparently incompetent only because its relevancy is not apparent, or because it is not the best evidence, is offered, the court may, in the exercise of its discretion receive it conditionally, if counsel gives assurance that he will supply the necessary foundation afterward. If, however, such evidence is so conditionally received, and the necessary connecting evidence is not introduced, so as to show the relevancy of the admitted evidence, the court should exclude the evidence so received on its own motion, but, if the failure to connect be not apparent or glaring, the objecting party should move to exclude.

General objections to evidence proposed, without stating the precise grounds of objections, are vague and nugatory, and are without weight before an appellate court, unless the evidence objected to is palpably prejudicial, improper, and inadmissible for any purpose or under any circumstances.

Evidence of circumstances tending to connect the accused with the commission of the alleged crime, even though inconclusive, is properly admitted.

In a prosecution for forgery it is not error to permit a witness to testify as to the signature of the defendant, when such witness has testified that he had seen defendant sign his name on different occasions, and thought he was familiar with defendant's signature.

In a prosecution for forgery, it is competent to show that about the time of the alleged forging and uttering by defendant other similar instruments had been forged or uttered by him, in pursuance of a general scheme to defraud, and the fact that defendant was under indictment for the forgery of some of the other instruments does not affect their admissibility in evidence.

For the purpose of discrediting a witness, a wide range of cross-examination is permitted as a matter of right in regard to his motives, interest, or animus as connected with the cause or parties thereto, upon which matters he may be contradicted by other evidence, and the rule applies to the cross-examination of a defendant, when he voluntarily offers himself as a witness, to the same extent and with like limitations as to other witnesses. The motives, interest, or animus of a witness are not collateral matters, and these may be shown and considered by the jury in estimating the credibility of a witness, and as to such matters he may be contradicted.

An assignment predicated upon the refusal of the trial court to give a certain requested instruction cannot be considered by an appellate court, in the absence of any showing that an exception was taken to said ruling.

Evidence examined, and found sufficient to support the verdict.

COUNSEL

Benjamin S. Liddon, for plaintiff in error.

W. H. Ellis, Atty. Gen., and J. Walter Kehoe, State's Atty. First Judicial Circuit, for the State.

OPINION

SHACKLEFORD C.J.

The plaintiff in error, J. T. Pittman, hereinafter referred to as the defendant, was indicted by the grand jury at the spring term in May, 1905, of the circuit court for Holmes county for the crime of forgery. The indictment contained two counts; the first count charging the defendant with the forgery of a certain written instrument therein fully described, and the second count charging the defendant with the uttering and publishing of the same written instrument which in the first count he was charged with having forged. The defendant was tried at the fall term of said court held in October, 1905, which trial resulted in his conviction of the crime charged in the second count of the indictment, and he was sentenced to be confined at hard labor in the state prison for the term of five years. From this judgment and sentence he seeks relief here by writ of error, returnable to the present term. The person whose name the defendant was charged with having forged was C. L. Douglass, and the written instrument to which the name of the said Douglass was appended was a note under seal, dated the 4th day of May, 1904, for the sum of $46, in payment for 20 sacks of fertilizer, and payable to the Virginia-Carolina Chemical Company, which was alleged in the indictment to be a corporation, or to its order, on or before October, 1904.

The first error assigned is that 'the court erred in refusing to issue subpoena for witnesses W. R. Stanley and J. M. Holliday upon the affidavit of the defendant of insolvency made October the 9th, 1905.'

The bill of exceptions discloses that on the 9th day of October, 1905, the defendant presented his affidavit to the trial court, reciting therein the fact of his insolvency, and that C. A. Douglass, W. R. Stanley, W. D. Locke, and J. M. Holliday were material witnesses on behalf of the defendant in said cause, by whom he expected to prove that each of said witnesses was present when the note in question was executed and saw C. L. Douglass execute said writing, and defendant prayed that subpoena issue for each of said witnesses. The court refused to issue subpoenas for all of the requested witnesses, for the reason that at the time the application was made for the witnesses applications were made by the defendant for witnesses in eight other cases pending against him upon indictments found by the same grand jury charging him with other forgeries, and uttering other forgeries about the same time of the one charged in the indictment in question, in most of which applications more than two witnesses to the same fact were asked for, in several cases the same witnesses being asked for in more than one application, and in the application in question four witnesses to the same fact were asked for, but allowed two of said witnesses to be selected by the defendant to be subpoenaed. The defendant excepted to the ruling of the court, but selected the names of W. D. Locke and C. A. Douglass as the two witnesses to be allowed upon the applications, stating that in more than one of the other cases the court had, upon his application, allowed subpoenas for W. R. Stanley and J. M. Holliday.

In his brief defendant admits that 'the application for witnesses was not a full and technical compliance with the act (Rev. St. 1892, § 2868) or chapter 5132, p. 71, of Acts of 1903, so as to entitle the defendant to have process for witnesses at the expense of the state or rather county.'

We fully concur in the admission, but, even if all of the requirements of the law relating thereto had been fully complied with, we fail to see wherein the defendant was harmed in any way by the action of the court, inasmuch as all four of the witnesses named in the application had been subpoenaed by the court, at defendant's request, in other prosecutions for forgery pending against him, for the same term of court at which he was tried on the indictment in the case at bar. We are of the opinion that this...