Stone v. State
| Decision Date | 02 March 1909 |
| Citation | 48 So. 996,57 Fla. 28 |
| Parties | STONE v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Headnotes Filed April 20, 1909.
In Banc. Error to Circuit Court, Walton County; J. Emmet Wolfe Judge.
Hester Stone was convicted of murder in the second degree, and brings error. Affirmed.
Daniel Campbell & Son, for plaintiff in error.
Park M Trammell, Atty. Gen., for the State.
Hester Stone was indicted in the circuit court for Walton county for murder in the first degree, by cutting to death with a knife one Nancy Campbell. She was convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Upon her arraignment at the spring term, 1908, she was granted at her instance a continuance to the then ensuing fall term, and upon being put to trial at that term she moved a further continuance upon the ground of the absence of a witness, and the refusal of this continuance constitutes the first assignment of error. We find no abuse of discretion in the denial of the motion.
The testimony she expected to procure was the evidence of one A. H. Hilson, the committing officer, to the effect that the principal state witness had made at the preliminary hearing a statement different from that given by her at the trial. No proper predicate was laid for the impeaching evidence, there were numerous other witnesses present at the preliminary hearing, who might have been called, have the proper predicate been laid, and the necessity of an adjournment to another term to secure Hilson's presence is not sufficiently shown. Other objections might be urged and multiplied.
The court gave the statutory definition of murder in the second degree, and this is assigned for error. There was no error here. Our statutory definition of manslaughter is reached by a process of exclusion, being in substance an unlawfull killing which is not murder in any of its degrees, and to define it correctly to the jury it is proper to give the statutory definitions of murder, even though the evidence may not make out strictly a case of one of the higher crimes.
In the charge of the court upon the crime of manslaughter, charged in the indictment along with that of murder, there appeared in the original transcript a clerical misprision, in that it permitted the jury to find manslaughter, when the facts hypothesized would justify a vedict of murder in the first degree; but this slip did not in fact exist,...
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Ward v. State
... ... State, 45 Fla. 46, 34 So. 287. The other experimentation ... with the statute we think was also harmless. The unlawful ... killing of a man when such killing is not murder in any ... degree is manslaughter, at least so far as the facts of this ... case are concerned. See Stone v. State, 57 Fla. 28, ... 48 So. 996. We think, however, that where it becomes ... necessary to define a statutory crime to a jury the statute ... should be literally followed. Considered alone, the ... instruction was erroneous, because in it the jury were told ... that, if they did not find ... ...
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Hodella v. State
... ... was sufficient to sustain a conviction of any lesser degree ... of unlawful homicide. See Ammons v. State, 88 Fla. 444, 102 ... So. 642; Morrison v. State, 42 Fla. 149, 28 So. 97; Owens v ... State, 65 Fla. 483, 62 So. 651; Stone v. State, 57 Fla. 28, ... 48 So. 996; Dedge v. State, 68 Fla. 240, 67 So. 43; Johnson ... v. State, 24 Fla. 162, 4 So. 535, approved and distinguished ... in Marshall v. State, 32 Fla. 462, 14 So. 92; Brown v. State, ... 31 Fla. 207, 12 So. 640 ... No reversible error ... being made ... ...
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Woods v. State
... ... a verdict and judgment for a higher [154 Fla. 206] degree of ... homicide. Pruitt v. State, 143 Fla. 897, 197 So ... 519. Also, see, Ammons v. State, 88 Fla. 444, 102 ... So. 642; Morrison v. State, 42 Fla. 149, 28 So. 97; ... Owens v. State, 65 Fla. 483, 62 So. 651; Stone ... v. State, 57 Fla. 28, 48 So. 996; Dedge v ... State, 68 Fla. 240, 67 So. 43; Johnson v ... State, 24 Fla. 162, 4 So. 535, approved and ... distinguished in Marshall v. State, 32 Fla. 462, 14 ... So. 92; and Brown v. State, 31 Fla. 207, 12 So. 640 ... The same rule ... ...
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Allison v. State, E-271
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