Snipes v. State
| Decision Date | 10 March 1944 |
| Citation | 154 Fla. 262,17 So.2d 93 |
| Parties | SNIPES v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Walton County; L. L Fabisinski, judge.
W. W Flournoy, of De Funiak Springs, for appellant.
J. Tom Watson, Atty. Gen., and John C. Wynn, Asst. Atty. Gen., and J. Edwin Holsberry, of Pensacola, for appellee.
The record in this case was originally assigned to Mr. Justice Chapman to prepare an opinion and judgment for the Court. He carefully and conscientiously prepared one with which the whole Court in the main agrees but in which the majority cannot concur for the reason that the conclusion reached in that opinion is that the judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded for judgment as for conviction of manslaughter.
The verdict of murder in the first degree was quite evidently the result of prejudice, as there is no evidence in the record to establish the element of premeditated design. Neither is there evidence sufficient to establish the necessary elements of murder in the second degree. Having reached this conclusion, it appears to us that we may no longer consider the verdict as fixing the fact of guilt of some degree of unlawful homicide and thereupon dispose of the case under the provisions of Sec. 310, Criminal Procedure Act, F.S.A. § 924.34, by reversing the judgment with directions that judgment be entered adjudging the defendant guilty of a certain lesser degree of unlawful homicide of which the jury might have found the defendant guilty.
It is our view, in the light of what is said above, that unless we can say that we are convinced from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant was guilty of some certain degree of unlawful homicide, we should reverse the judgment and remand the cause for further proceedings.
We are not so convinced and, therefore, cannot concur in directing a judgment of guilty of any degree of unlawful homicide in this case.
The cause is reversed with directions that a new trial be had and conducted in the light of the views expressed both herein and in the opinion by Mr. Justice CHAPMAN that the evidence presented in this record is insufficient to support a verdict and judgment for murder in the first degree or of murder in the second degree.
So ordered.
The appellant Alfred Snipes, alias Alford Snipes, a colored man, was indicted for the crime of murder in the first degree of R. E. Gatlin, the then Sheriff of Walton County, Florida, by a grand jury of said County. The crime was alleged to have been committed by the defendant below on November 12, 1942, at his home in Walton County, Florida. The appellant was by the trial court adjudged insolvent and Honorable W. W. Flournoy, of the DeFuniak Springs Bar, was appointed as counsel to represent the defendant below during the progress of the trial of the cause. He was placed upon trial, convicted of murder in the first degree, without recommendation and by the trial court sentenced to death by electrocution, and therefrom has perfected his appeal here.
Counsel for appellant poses for adjudication here three questions, while the Attorney General expresses the view that two of the proposed questions, because of clarity, should be restated. We have carefully considered the entire record, briefs of counsel, and, after hearing able oral argument at the bar of this Court, it is our conclusion that an answer to the following question will be a full answer to and dispose of the case. The question is, viz: Was the evidence as adduced during the progress of the trial legally sufficient to sustain the verdict and judgment for the crime of murder in the first degree? The answer to the question is found in an analysis of all the testimony.
The evidence discloses that the late Sheriff Gatlin, on November 12, 1942, accompanied by Deputy Sheriff Curtis Miller, went to the home of Alford Snipes, situated near DeFuniak Springs, for the purpose of searching it for contraband whiskey. The officers had obtained a search warrant (subsequently by the courts held fatally defective), and, after locating the defendant, apprised him of their mission and then delivered to him a copy of the search warrant and requested the privilege of searching his home for whiskey. He consented to the search, and, the house being locked, went with the officers to the front door of his home, unlocked it, opened the front door, and invited them to make the search. The officers, in the presence of the defendant, entered the home and undertook the task of searching it.
The Sheriff, followed by his deputy and the defendant, walked through the living room into the kitchen, and when about to enter the bedroom from the kitchen, the deputy told the defendant that the officers would make the search and for him to leave the bedroom, which he did; but turned and reached in the direction of a trunk then situated near the door in the bedroom. The deputy testified that he told the defendant, 'Get back Snipes', and upon telling him that the defendant 'turned and looked at me like a wild man and I reached for my handcuffs and black jack, and he (the defendant) backed up to the west wall of the little dining room.'
When the three were in the dining room, the defendant was hit by Deputy Miller with a black jack and shot one time by the Sheriff. The defendant, at the time, was not armed; the sheriff had a pistol and the deputy a black jack, handcuffs and a pistol. Subsequent strokes with the black jack, coupled with an effort to leave the dining room, resulted in the defendant falling on a settee in the living room, when the defendant and Deputy Miller clinched and tussled over the possession of a pistol. It fired three times during the struggle, to the best of his (deputy's) judgment. The Sheriff's pistol was a six-shooter. When introduced into evidence it had five empty cartridges and one unfired cartridge in the gun. The six shots are accounted for, viz: the first fired by the sheriff at the defendant when in the dining room; the second by the defendant, killing the sheriff; and three fired in the struggle over the pistol, and the remaining unfired cartridge.
Pertinent portions of the testimony of Deputy Miller about the details of the fight resulting in the death of Sheriff Gatlin are, viz:
'A. * * * I started to put the cuffs back in my case and he made a lunge and struck at me, and I lunged at him, and the Sheriff shot at him, and he wheeled around and dived for the door to the front room, and there's a settee over against the wall and he struck that and fell over. I was there by that time and I reached at him with the blackjack and knocked him back on the settee, and we tied up there and got on the floor, and the Sheriff come in from my right and as he come in I said 'hit him',--we were fighting down on the floor, and I seen he was getting up with me and I told the Sheriff to hit him with something.
'Q. Did he have you down then, on top of you?
'A. No, not at that time, but I seen he was going to get up with me, and by that time he throwed me flat on my back, and the Sheriff made a step and struck at him and the gun went off and I seen him fall back and he says 'Curt, he's shot me, he's got my gun', and he turns around to me and told me 'I'm going to get you now.' and as he come at me I caught the gun with my right hand, got my hand on the trigger and went to shooting and shot till he fouled it, or it wouldn't shoot any more,--I didn't know if I'd emptied it, and so I reached and got the gun with my left hand, the barrel of the Sheriff's gun, and I reached for my gun.
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Bell v. State
...reasonable persons might differ as to facts tending to prove ultimate facts or inferences to be drawn from the facts. Snipes v. State, 154 Fla. 262, 17 So.2d 93 (1944). Washington v. State, 737 So.2d 1208, 1215-16 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999). The question now is whether the trial court erred in den......
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Washington v. State
...reasonable persons might differ as to facts tending to prove ultimate facts or inferences to be drawn from the facts. Snipes v. State, 154 Fla. 262, 17 So.2d 93 (1944). Contrary to the defense's assertion that this is a circumstantial-evidence case, the State contends that the case includes......
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Wilson v. State
...length of time to be conscious of a well defined purpose and intention to kill another human being.Snipes v. State, 154 Fla. 262, 270, 17 So.2d 93, 97 (1944) (Chapman, J., concurring). ...
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Gurganus v. State
...element includes the requirement that the accused have the specific intent to kill at the time of the offense. E.g., Snipes v. State, 154 Fla. 262, 17 So.2d 93 (1944); Chisolm v. State, 74 Fla. 50, 76 So. 329 (1917). Likewise, specific intent to kill is also an element to be proved by the s......