Seay v. State
| Decision Date | 25 July 1939 |
| Citation | 139 Fla. 433,190 So. 702 |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
| Parties | SEAY v. STATE. |
Error to Circuit Court, Union County; A. Z. Atkins, Judge.
Pearl Seay was convicted for the crime of larceny of a hog, and he brings error.
Affirmed.
H. O. Brown, of Lake Butler, for plaintiff in error.
George Couper Gibbs, Atty. Gen., and Thomas J. Ellis, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
The plaintiff in error, Pearl Seay, was informed against, placed upon trial, and convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court of Union County, Florida, for the crime of larceny of a hog property of one C. D. Newburn, and was by the trial court sentenced to serve for a period of two years at hard labor in the State Prison. From this judgment of conviction an appeal has been perfected to this court and a number of errors assigned for a reversal.
It is contended by counsel for plaintiff in error that the evidence adduced by the State was legally insufficient to sustain a conviction. The evidence shows that Mr. Newburn owned a hog that ranged around the place occupied by Theodore James near Worthington Springs, and that plaintiff in error went to the home of Theodore James and the hog was killed at James' home by plaintiff in error and James; that after the hog was butchered it was divided between James and plaintiff in error, and fresh hog meat was found at the home of James shortly after the hog owned by Newburn disappeared.
Plaintiff in error contends that he did not participate in butchering the hog or in the division of the meat between him and the witness James, but that on the date the hog was alleged to have been stolen and butchered he was not at the James home but was engaged in painting and loading cross ties some distance away, and adduced testimony to corroborate his defense. It is true that there is a conflict or dispute in the testimony offered on the part of the prosecution and the defense, but under our system such conflicts and disputes are questions of fact to be settled by the jury under appropriate instructions on the part of the trial court. The rule controlling an appellate court in considering the sufficiency of the evidence to support a verdict is not what it may think a jury ought to have done, or what such court may think it would have done had it been sitting as a jury in the case, but the rule is whether as reasonable men the jury could have found from the evidence such a verdict. If the jury as reasonable men could have found such a verdict based upon the evidence, then the ruling of the trial court in denying the motion for a new trial should not be disturbed.
If the record discloses evidence from which all the essential elements of a crime may legally have been found and upon the examination by this Court of the evidence it does not appear that the jury in considering the evidence was influenced by considerations other than the evidence, the order of the trial court refusing to grant a new trial on account of the insufficiency of the evidence, or because the verdict is contrary to the evidence, will not be disturbed. This Court has no authority at law to substitute its conclusions on questions of fact for...
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Davis v. State
...to support a jury verdict is whether the jury, as reasonable men, could have found such a verdict from the evidence. Seay v. State, 139 Fla. 433, 190 So. 702 (1939). The Second District Court of Appeal in Bradford v. State, 460 So.2d 926 (Fla. 2nd DCA 1982), said that the reviewing court mu......
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Florida Power Corp. v. Smith
...sitting as a juror was, peculiarly enough made by counsel for Florida Power and not by any of counsel for plaintiffs. In Seay v. State, 1939, 139 Fla. 433, 190 So. 702, the Supreme Court held 'After the rendition of an adverse verdict, it is too late to be heard on the question of a legal d......
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Ellison v. Cribb
...212 So.2d 652; Booth v. Mary Carter Paint Company (Fla.App.1966) 182 So.2d 292; Bessett v. Hackett (Fla.1953) 66 So.2d 694.4 Seay v. State, 139 Fla. 433, 190 So. 702.5 Drury v. Franke, 247 Ky. 758, 57 S.W.2d 969 (1933).6 Consolidated Gas & Equipment Co. of America v. Carver (10th Cir. 1958)......
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Nicholson v. State Of Fla.
...for the jury to resolve, the trial court did not err in allowing Counts Three and Four to go to the jury. See Seay v. State, 139 Fla. 433, 190 So. 702, 703 (1939); Jean v. State, 638 So.2d 995, 997 (Fla. 4th DCA Because appellant did not preserve the issue of the trial court's use of the co......