Williams v. State
| Decision Date | 07 June 1917 |
| Citation | 73 Fla. 1198,75 So. 785 |
| Parties | WILLIAMS v. STATE. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Pinellas County; O. K. Reaves, Judge.
Cassie Williams was convicted of manslaughter, and she brings error. Affirmed.
Syllabus by the Court
In the trial of one under an indictment for murder, where the evidence is sufficient to support a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, a verdict of manslaughter will not be disturbed upon the ground that the evidence is not sufficient to support a verdict of that degree of homicide.
A question so framed as to require an affirmative or negative answer as to a transaction having no relevancy to the issue is amenable to the objection that it calls for irrelevant testimony.
In the trial of a person charged with crime, a question embodying an insinuation against the knowledge of law or intelligence of a witness then being examined propounded by the state attorney to a witness for the defendant and withdrawn upon objection by the defendant is not such misconduct of the prosecuting officer as to require a reversal of the judgment.
In the trial of one for murder, where the evidence is circumstantial and there is evidence tending to show that the deceased was killed by being shot with a firearm of a certain caliber, it is not error to admit in evidence the testimony of one that defendant owned and possessed a firearm of the same caliber.
Deductions which may be reasonably drawn from the evidence are permissible in argument by counsel before the jury, although such deductions may be questioned by opposing counsel.
An instruction given by the court to the jury which admonishes them that circumstantial evidence, when sufficient to establish the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt is sufficient in quality and character of proof to sustain a conviction, is not rendered harmful to the degree of requiring a reversal of the judgment because the court subjoins to his instruction an incorrect reason or theory upon which that character of evidence is admissible.
Correct propositions of law applicable to the evidence which are contained in instructions given by the court in its general charge need not be repeated in instructions requested by the defendant; so that the refusal to give such instructions is not error.
COUNSEL John F. Groene, of Tarpon Springs, Jas. F Sikes, of Punta Gorda, and A. R. Logan, of Jacksonville, for plaintiff in error.
T. F West, Atty. Gen., and C. O. Andrews, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The plaintiff in error was convicted of manslaughter in the circuit court for Pinellas county in September, 1916, upon an indictment charging her with the murder of Cora Bell Jones on the 29th day of August, 1916, and seeks a reversal of the judgment upon writ of error.
Cora Bell Jones was assassinated on the night of August 29, 1916, about 1 o'clock a. m., in her bedroom while she was disrobing preparatory to retiring for the night. The assassin used a firearm which carried a small bullet about the size of a 32-caliber pistol bullet, and fired it through a window from the outside. Several shots were fired; two of them taking effect in the back of the deceased. Under the window through which the shots were fired footprints were discovered upon the ground which were made by a woman's shoe. Soon after this occurrence and during the same night the defendant was arrested in her house, which was a few blocks away from the house of the deceased. The defendant and her husband had retired and were apparently asleep when the officers, Mr. Whitehurst, sheriff, Nr. Mickler, noght policeman of Tarpon Springs, and a Mr. Dougherty went to her house. After arousing the woman she told them that she had lost the key to the front door and they would have to enter through a window, which they did. In one of the rooms behind a piano Mr. Mickler found a pistol. His attention had been attracted by something he 'heard fall over in the corner' of the room, and, looking behind the piano, found the pistol. It was of 32-caliber and unloaded. The sheriff said:
There were no empty shells in the pistol and a string drawn through the barrel showed burnt powder stains. There was some evidence of bad feeling on the part of the defendant toward the deceased growing out of alleged intimate relations between her and the husband of the defendant.
The defendant by her counsel moved for a new trial, which, among other grounds, contained one questioning the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. The motion was overruled, and counsel for plaintiff in error insist that the ruling was erroneous because: First, the evidence was insufficient to establish the defendant's guilt; and second, that the verdict of manslaughter was without evidence to support it. The contention is that, even if the evidence was sufficient to sustain a verdict of murder against the defendant below, it was not sufficient to sustain a verdict of manslaughter. The fact that the verdict was for manslaughter instead of murder is used by counsel by way of argument to show that the circumstances upon which the state relied to sustain the indictment for murder were insufficient for that purpose in the minds of the juror, who, entertaining a reasonable doubt as to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the charge of murder, found the defendant guilty of manslaughter, instead of returning a verdict of not guilty. All the evidence except that relating to the shooting was circumstantial. There was one eyewitness to the shooting, although that witness did not see the person who fired the shot. That witness was a roommate of the deceased; they were both in the same room when the shot was fired. The witness said the shots were fired from the outside through a certain window, that there were two shots, and that a lace certain hanging at the window caught fire from the flash of the pistol or firearm used. The remainder of the evidence is circumstantial and points strongly to the defendant's guilt. Ill feeling was shown to have existed between the defendant and the deceased, which arose from the attention that the latter paid to the former's husband. The defendant only a few nights before made a conditional threat against the deceased in which reference was made to a 32-caliber firearm. The night of the homicide the defendant and deceased quarreled. The defendant's shoe corresponded with the footprints discovered under the window through which the shots were fired; the footprints were marked by a certain peculiarity of one heel. The footprints were traced to a distance of about 200 feet southeast of the house where the shooting occurred. Those tracks appeared to have been made by a person coming from the direction of the defendant's house and who returned in that direction running. A woman was seen that night shortly before and soon after the shooting going in the direction of the house occupied by the deceased and returning from that direction. This woman who was unidentified came from the direction of the defendant's house and returned in that direction. Considering this evidence in connection with the circumstance that the defendant's shoe corresponded 'exactly,' to use the words of the witness Judge J. J. Hope, with the tracks of the woman under the window through which the shots were fired, the circumstances are inconsistent with the theory that the tracks could have been made by any one other than the defendant. As the evidence shows that the shots were fired by some one standing very close to the window, and as the defendant's tracks were the only tracks within 'a radius of four or five feet,' presumably of a spot under the window, the jury could reasonably have concluded that the defendant fired the shots which killed the deceased. See ...
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