Wilson v. State

• Decision Date: 22 October 1892
• Parties: WILSON v. STATE.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

11 So. 556

30 Fla. 234

WILSON v. STATE.

Florida Supreme Court

October 22, 1892

Error to circuit court, Alachua county; J. J. FINLEY, Judge.

Miles Wilson was convicted of murder, and brings error. Reversed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

1. Threats of violence by the deceased against the accused though not communicated to the latter, are admissible as evidence where there is any doubt as to who began the encounter. They tend to show that it was the intention of the deceased at the time of the meeting to attack the accused and hence tend to prove that the former brought on the conflict, and are relevant evidence. If all the evidence is to the effect that the defendant was the aggressor they are not admissible.

2. The question of the admissibility of uncommunicated threats as evidence touching the issue as to who began the encounter is one for the court, its function being merely to decide whether or not, viewing the entire evidence at the time the offer to prove them is made, there is any doubt as to who began the encounter. Their weight, when introduced, is for the jury's determination, upon considering them in connection with all the other evidence.

3. The wife of the deceased was the only witness present at the time of the homicide. She testified that defendant came to deceased's home, a small log house with two rooms, in the morning, about daylight, before sunrise, and called the deceased, and shot through the back door. Deceased got up out of bed immediately, and put on his pants, and opened the front door, and asked defendant where he was. The latter replied that he was 'around here,' and then he walked around to the front door, and said: 'Hollis, I want my money. I have got to have it;' and also asked him what that was he had in his hand, and as soon as he said this the pistol fired, and deceased exclaimed that he was shot, and ran into his room to his wife, and then ran out after defendant. That deceased did not have any pistol that she knew of; and again, that he had no weapon when he went out nor any the night before. That she did not get out of bed until defendant had shot deceased; and that it was just a moment from the time Miles fired into the back door until deceased opened the front door. She also testified to a white-handled pistol being on the front piazza, which she said was not her husband's. It was not indisputable viewing the entire evidence, whether the accused shot with a white-handled or a black-handled pistol, or that the accused ever had a white-handled pistol. There was evidence that they had gambled the evening before at deceased's house, and had quarreled, the deceased refusing to play longer, and the defendant had threatened to kill the deceased if he did not give defendant his money back, or play with him until he broke him. Held, that the case was one in which the testimony did not show the exact attitude of the parties at the time they came in sight of each other, and that the trial judge erred in holding that no predicate had been laid for the admission of any threats by the deceased against the accused. Mabry, J., dissenting.

4. A person's dwelling house is a castle of defense for himself and his family; and an assault upon it with intent to injure him, or any of them, may be met in the same way as an assault upon himself, or any of them, and he may meet the assailant at the threshold, and use the force necessary for his or their protection against the threatened invasion and harm.

5. Where the force of an instruction, which is requested, and is proper in itself, is not changed by an addition made to it by the court, there is no error in the mere fact of making the addition.

6. There must have been not only the belief, but also reasonable ground for the accused to believe, that at the time of killing the deceased he was in imminent or immediate danger of his life or great bodily harm from the deceased, to excuse the homicide on the ground of self-defense.

7. The words, 'first done some apparently hostile act towards the defendant,' suggested as a safe substitute, on a new trial, for the words, 'first assaulted him with a deadly weapon,' in a charge that, if the jury 'believed from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant went to the house of the deceased, and commenced and brought on the difficulty, and shot him down and killed him without the deceased having first assaulted him with a deadly weapon, putting the defendant in reasonable fear of his own life or of any great bodily harm to himself,' they should find him guilty as charged in the indictment.

COUNSEL

Ashby & Davis and Charles L. Fildes, for plaintiff in error.

The Attorney General, for the State.

OPINION

The other facts fully appear in the following statement by RANEY C.J.:

The testimony, in so far as it need be given, is, in substance, as follows:

Rachel Wilson, the wife of the deceased, was the only witness to the homicide. She says that the defendant and the deceased had been playing cards on Monday,--the day before the homicide,--at the deceased's house, or, as his wife says, her house, (which, the testimony shows, was a small log house, with two rooms,) and the deceased had won, and had declined playing any more, and at this the defendant had become displeased, and they had quarreled, or had, as stated in another place, a little dispute, and the defendant had demanded of the deceased that he should continue to play, or give him back his money, which the deceased had, in effect, declined to do, but had offered him two dollars, which the prisoner refused to take, saying that he must have every cent of it, or they must play. They parted near about sundown, the defendant going off; but Hollis did not tell him to come back and get the money. The next morning, about daylight, and before sunrise, the defendant returned to the deceased's house, the deceased and his wife being then still in bed, and called Hollis, and shot through the back door. Hollis got up immediately, and put on his pants, opened the front door, and said, 'Miles, where are you?' Miles replied, 'I am around here,' and then walked around to the front door, and said, 'Hollis, I want my money. I have got to have it;' and also asked Hollis what was that he had in his hand, and then, as soon as he asked this, the pistol fired, and Hollis said, 'Lord, have mercy; I am shot,' and said that Miles had shot him, and ran into the room to his wife. Then Hollis ran out after Miles, who ran ahead, and Hollis, as he was coming back to the yard, fell on his face, when one Alex. Wilson came up. She also says that Miles shot Hollis; that Hollis was inside the house, and, after he was shot, ran out after Miles; and that Hollis did not have any pistol that she knew of; and again, that he had no weapon when he went out, nor any the night before; that he was in the house, and was shot before he went out; that George Carlisle was present on Monday, and carried Miles off that day; that she did not get up until Miles shot Hollis; that she stood on the piazza, and said, 'What is the matter with you? How much money did he win from you? I will get it, and give it to you;' and that when Alexander Wilson came up he asked her for the money to give to Miles; that it was just a moment from the time Miles fired into the back door until Hollis opened the front door. She also says that the 'pistol I saw on the piazza was a light, white-handled pistol. Didn't take it up. It was not my husband's pistol.'

The physician, W. M. Bailey, who attended Hollis, going to his home about 7 o'clock on the morning of the altercation, testified as to the wound of Hollis, and his dying from its effects. He also says that, when Frank Brown came with the prisoner to where witness was living, Brown said he was hunting a pistol, and wanted to know if witness had seen the pistol, and witness told him he had not. Witness further said that no remark was made about the shooting, and (referring to the pistol in court) that Miles acknowledged that that was the pistol he shot the man with; that this admission was 'voluntary and free.' He also states, on cross-examination, that when Brown came there with prisoner, inquiring for the pistol, he had a pistol in his hand, 'and allusions were made to the pistol I had seen there at Hollis'. Frank said, 'This is the pistol Miles Wilson shot with.' Frank Brown asked about another pistol, and said this is the one he shot with, and he assented by a nod of the head, saying, 'Yes.' It was a white stock pistol, ordinary size. Do not know what caliber. I believe it was a white stock. It was not a very large stock. He said nothing else except to nod the head, as I remember. Was there in the custody of Frank Brown. The pistol at Hollis' house was like the one Brown had that morning, that lay on the portico as I went in. I don't know what became of it;' observed it when he got there.

Frank Brown, a witness for the defendant, as we understand, testified that he arrested the defendant, but that he never went to Bailey's house, nor had any conversation with Bailey, and did not remember having seen Bailey at any time the defendant was in his custody; that he took the pistol in court from defendant,--a Smith & Wesson, 'a black pistol.' 'This is the pistol I took from Miles.' That he brought another pistol into court,--a little pistol he got from Hollis' father when witness was in the street at Archer,--and the other he took from Miles when he was arrested. He arrested Miles, who ran when witness got in a hundred and fifty yards of him.

George Carlisle also testified that the deceased and defendant were gambling on the stated Monday, and that, as he came back by there that evening, they were disputing, and Miles said to Hollis: 'Hollis, you...