Smith v. State
| Decision Date | 05 March 1931 |
| Citation | 132 So. 840,101 Fla. 1066 |
| Parties | SMITH v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
En Banc.
Error to Circuit Court, Holmes County; D. J. Jones, Judge.
Hosea Smith was convicted of rape, and he brings error.
Reversed.
Syllabus by the Court.
It is a well-established general rule in this court that, when the propriety of a verdict depends upon the credibility of conflicting testimony, and when the facts in evidence are complicated or contradictory, requiring a consideration of the character, integrity, or probity of witnesses whose testimony it is necessary to compare and weigh, the verdict of the jury will not be set aside as against the weight of the evidence, unless the evidence preponderates so strongly against the verdict that the court cannot conclude that such verdict was the result of a due consideration of the evidence. Exceptions to this rule, however, have been previously recognized by this court in criminal cases where the evidence as to the identification of the accused as being the guilty party or the evidence relied upon to establish some essential element of the offense was not satisfactory.
Where justice demands a reversal of the judgment because the evidence upon which the state relied for a conviction is so unreasonable, contradictory, unsubstantial, and unsatisfactory as to have left the jury to grope in the realm of guesswork and speculation to return a verdict against the defendant, it should be so ordered.
E. C. Boswell, of Geneva, Ala., for plaintiff in error.
Fred H Davis, Atty. Gen., and Roy Campbell, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
In this case the defendant in the court below was convicted of rape and was recommended to the mercy of the court. The bill of exceptions presented some of the most unreasonable stories we have ever been called upon to consider.
The record shows that the woman alleged to have been assaulted has sworn to three different stories about the matter; that she first swore before a grand jury investigating the case that the defendant never touched her at all. Before another grand jury she testified apparently very much as she did upon the trial, except that before the grand jury she testified that, while the crime was being committed, she told the accused that she was suffering with a headache, and would like to get up and get some asperin; that he allowed her to get up, go out on the porch and take the aspirin and return. This does not appear in her testimony before the trial jury, and, if it had, there would doubtless have been no conviction.
It appears from the most favorable aspect of the state's case that the husband was present during the commission of the alleged offense, that he was wide awake and in possession of his faculties, and supinely obeying the orders of the accused, who was unarmed. It further appears that such force as was alleged to have been used could have scarcely been effective on one not a willing victim.
In Troop v. State, 98 Fla. 385, 123 So. 811, 813, it was said:
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Grant v. State
...States, 295 U.S. 78, 55 S.Ct. 629-633, 79 L.Ed. 1314, decided April 15, 1935; Smith v. State, 147 Fla. 191, 3 So.2d 516; Smith v. State, 101 Fla. 1066, 132 So. 840; Oglesby v. State, 156 Fla. 481, 23 So.2d 558; Deas v. State, 119 Fla. 839, 161 So. 729; Livingston v. State, 140 Fla. 749, 192......
- Clark v. Grey
-
Sims v. State
...unduly prejudicial, and designed to cause jurors to engage in a prohibited exercise of abstract speculation. See Smith v. State, 101 Fla. 1066, 1069, 132 So. 840, 841 (1931) (reversing judgment where the evidence relied upon "left the jury to grope in the realm of guesswork and speculation ......
-
Padgett v. State
...in the realm of guesswork and in speculation, to return a verdict against the accused, and reverse the judgment here. See Smith v. State, 101 Fla. 1066, 132 So. 840; Moody v. State, 76 Fla. 23, 79 So. 294; v. State, 58 Fla. 138, 50 So. 749; Howell v. State, 102 Fla. 612, 136 So. 456, 139 So......