Young v. State

• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: SHACKLEFORD, J.
• Citation: Young v. State, 63 Fla. 55, 58 So. 188 (Fla. 1912)
• Decision Date: 19 March 1912
• Parties: YOUNG v. STATE.

58 So. 188

63 Fla. 55

YOUNG v. STATE.

Florida Supreme Court

March 19, 1912

Error to Circuit Court, Leon County; John W. Malone, Judge.

Oliver Young, alias Marvel Young, was convicted of manslaughter, and brings error. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

In proceeding under a statute, the only safe course to pursue is to comply with all the requirements set forth therein; but the mere failure of the chairman of the board of county commissioners to sign the list of jurors before handing the same to the clerk of such board for recordation in the minutes, in accordance with the provisions of section 1571 of the General Statutes, is not sufficient to vitiate an indictmént found by a grand jury drawn from such list.

Pleas in abatement, setting up mere irregularities in the selection of jurors, should be drawn with the greatest accuracy and precision, and must be certain to every intent. They must leave nothing to be supplied by intendment, and no supposable special answer unobviated. When it affirmatively appears that no possible injury could accrue to a defendant by an irregularity, not amounting to a substantial departure from the requirements of law, in the selection and impaneling of jurors, an objection thereto should not avail.

A demurrer to a replication reaches back to the plea; and if the plea is defective in substance the judgment of the court in overruling the demurrer must be held to be correct regardless of the sufficiency of the replication.

In passing upon an assignment questioning the correctness of the ruling of the trial court in denying a motion for a new trial, which is based upon the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict, the question thereby presented to an appellate court is whether or not the jurors, acting as reasonable men, could have found such verdict from the evidence adduced. If this question can be answered in the affirmative, the action of the trial court upon such motion should not be disturbed.

COUNSEL

Fred T. Myers, W. J. Oven, and S. H. Diamond, all of Tallahassee for plaintiff in error.

Park Trammell, Atty. Gen., and C. O. Andrews, of Tallahassee, for the State.

OPINION

SHACKLEFORD J.

On the 19th day of May, 1911, at a regular term of the circuit court for Leon county, an indictment was presented by the grand jury in open court, in which Oliver Young, alias Marvel Young, was charged with the crime of murder in the first degree. On the 24th day of May, the defendant filed a plea in abatement, in which he questioned the validity of such indictment, to which plea the state filed a replication to which the defendant interposed a demurrer. The court overruled the demurrer and also the plea in abatement, which ruling forms the basis for the first two assignments. The defendant filed a plea of not guilty, and the case came on for trial before a jury, which resulted in the defendant being convicted of manslaughter. A motion in arrest of judgment was then filed by the defendant, in which he attacked the correctness of the order of the court in overruling the demurrer of the defendant, and also his plea in abatement. The overruling of this motion in arrest forms the predicate for the sixth assignment. The defendant seeks relief here by writ of error, and argues the first, second, and sixth assignments together. We shall likewise so treat them.

The plea in abatement is quite lengthy, and evidently was an earnest attempt to comply with the requirements which this court has laid down concerning such pleas. As we held in Cannon v. State, 62 Fla. ----, 57 So. 240 'Pleas in abatement, being dilatory, are not favored by the courts and must be strictly construed; they must be certain to certain intent in every particular; they must be unambiguous, and must leave nothing to be supplied by intendment, and must leave no supposable special answer unobviated.' See, also, the numerous prior decisions of this court therein cited. We do not copy the plea. It is sufficient to state that it avers a failure upon the part of the board of county commissioners to comply with the requirements laid down in section 1571 of the General Statutes of 1906, in that, when they made out the jury list for the year 1911, the chairman neglected to sign such list before the same was handed to the clerk for recordation in the minutes of such board. It is further averred in such plea that, 'though such list was entered on the minutes of such meeting at which it was made, the minutes of such meeting have never been signed.' In the replication filed to such plea, it is alleged as follows: 'While it is true that the chairman of the board of county commissioners did not sign the list of names to be placed in the jury box, as set out in said plea, but that said list of names was duly recorded in the minutes of the board of county commissioners in and for Leon county, Fla., on pages 211 to 215, inclusive, in the minute book of said board of county commissioners at an adjourned meeting of the regular meeting on Wednesday, January 5, 1910, the said regular meeting of said board of county commissioners having been begun and held on Tuesday, January 4, A. D. 1910; and subsequently, to wit, the said board of county commissioners, at their regular meeting held on February 1 A. D. 1910, read and approved the minutes of the meeting and proceedings of said board held on the said 4th and 5th days of January, A. D. 1910, and the minutes and proceedings of the meeting of the said board of county commissioners held on the said 1st day of February, A. D. 1910, wherein the minutes of said board of county commissioners at their meeting aforesaid, on said January 4 and 5, A. D. 1910, were read and approved, were duly approved and signed by J. W. Collins, the chairman of said ...