69 Fla. 401 | Fla. | 1915
Lead Opinion
Math Davis, B. M. Franklin and Ben McDaniel were jointly indicted for the murder of Eunie Johnson. They were all convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The evidence for the State was largely circumstantial. The theory of the State was that these white men went to the home of the negro Johnson, represented1 that they were deputy-sheriffs with a warrant for his arrest,-enticed
The testimony placed these men near the Johnson home under suspicious circumstances about the time that an unidentified man went to the house and called Johnson to the door. Johnson’s wife was in the house at that time and was permitted to testify that this man represented himself to be Cayson, a deputy sheriff, and further that there were two other men with him with a warrant for Johnson’s arrest. Johnson dressed and went off with this man. His wife saw but the one man — it was at night and she did not recognize him, nor did she see her husband again. His body was found the next day.
It is objected that the verbal statement of this unidentified man was improperly admitted because it was not shown that any of these plaintiffs in error were present. It is clear that if the State’s theory be correct, that this was but the initial step by some one in the conspiracy, and the inability of this negro woman to identify with certainty which one it was does not destroy the admissibility of the evidence. See Sumpter v. State, 45 Fla. 106, 33 South. Rep. 981. The representations or statements did not in the remotest degree tend to identify these plaintiffs in error as being in the plot to decoy Johnson from his home. The only names mentioned were those of two deputy sheriffs presumably well known in the locality, and the evidence was proper to show the plot and to explain why Johnson, without demurring, got up, dressed himself and left his home peacefully under the assumed protection of the law. We find no error here.
In the oral argument before this court the plaintiffs in error sought to amend this assignment of error and to confine it to the refusal to give one specific charge as to the quantum of proof when the defense of an alibi is offered. That instruction, however, was incorrect in that it required an acquittal of all three defendants, when the nearest approach in the testimony tending to establish an alibi was offered only as to one of the defendants. Upon the evidence and the other charges given, we feel reason
There remains but the assignment upon the alleged insufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. Though the evidence be circumstantial, in the sense that no eye-witness actually saw the killing, a careful and painstaking examination justifies this court in upholding the Circuit Judge in refusing to set aside the verdict upon the grounds urged. The lack of motive directed against the particular negro so slain and mutilated but emphasizes the atrocity of the crime, and the judgment and sentence will be affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
I am unable to concur in the judgment and opinion of the court. The evidence relied upon by the State for the conviction of the defendants was entirely circumstantial. On the 7th day of October, 1914, the body of a negro named Eunie Johnson was found in a branch about four miles south from where he lived, and about one and a half miles north of the town of Blountstown. There were several mortal wounds, some gunshot and some knife wounds upon the body. He had been dead several hours when found. The body appeared to have been mutilated by the amputation of one finger and the upper part of an ear. Eunie Johnson lived about a quarter of a mile east of the road leading from Blountstown to Marianna at a point about six miles north of Blountstown. Joe Frazier, another negro, lived about the same distance from Blountstown, and about the same distance from the road on the west side. On Tuesday night, October 6th, about
.. About that hour of the night the three defendants were seen on the public road with a Ford automobile at a point between the houses of Johnson and Frazier. Two of them that night went to Frazier’s house and one of them killed a dog there. Their actions that night on the public high: way and in that neighborhood were very suspicious. In this neighborhood and near the public road and between the homes of Johnson about a quarter of a mile east of the road, and Frazier’s about a quarter of a mile west of the road, are the houses occupied by George-Hansford and W. C. Pelt to the east and Lewis Hardwick to the west. From this point several miles south and about two. miles from Blountstown the road forks, .one arm leading abruptly to the east into a swamp, and crosses the branch in which the body of Johnson was found Wednesday, October 7th; the other arm of the road continues in a southerly direction to Blountstown. The track of a Ford automobile was discovered in the road leading eastward into the swamp and .up to .the- branch in wbiich about two hundred yards above that point the body of Johnson was found. In this road about the point where it crossed the branch, the automobile had .turned around, there were •signs of a struggle, and where a Are ha.d been built; from
In this record there is no fact or circumstance which connects the defendants or either one of them with the disappearance of Eunie Johnson. There is nothing to show that they -went out that night to see Johnson, nor that they expected to see him, nor that they actually saw him. The tracks which the witness Green measured at the place where the crime was supposed to have been committed was not shown to correspond with the track of either one of -the defendants, the witness was willing to swear and
The testimony of Mr. Barber as to the sale of Gasoline to McDaniel for use by Stubbs Franklin and about McDaniel’s going up the road, and that of Mr. Collins as to the statement by Ben McDaniel that he and Franklin were going up the road to serve a summons on a negro, tend to identify these men as two of the men who had the automobile in the Pelt-Hardwick neighborhood. The evidence of Middlebrooks established the presence of two of the men, Franklin and McDaniel, at the house of Frazier, that evidence was not inconsistent with the story of Franklin, who said that he and McDaniel went to Frazier’s house because McDaniel had an appointment with Frazier who had promised to “put him next to a negro up there by the name of Charlie Smith.” There was nothing to show that McDaniel did not have a warrant for the man Smith. When Alexander and his wife returned from delivering the dog at McDaniel’s house, he saw an automobile standing outside the road ten or fifteen steps from Mr. Hardwick’s fence, it looked like the car he had seen earlier that night near the same place in which were the
I think the evidence was insufficient to sustain the verdict. It fails wholly to connect the three defendants, or any one of them, with the disappearance of Johnson; it brings them no nearer to Johnson’s house than the public road which was one of the main thoroughfares of the county and a quarter of a mile from his house; it shows no motive for the commission of the crime; nor is any connection shown between the tracks of the automobile
Suppose the tires on Franklin’s car were not 30x3 in front and 30x3 1-2 on the rear wheels, then here would be a fact wholly inconsistent with the theory of guilt in this case. Are we to presume that the tires were of that size in aid of conviction? Did the jury so presume the existence of such fact? Without the existence of this fact established to a moral certainty not invoked by presumption against the defendants the chain of circumstances was broken and incomplete. The circumstances all taken together must be of a conclusive nature and tendency, leading on the whole to a satisfactory conclusion and producing in effect a reasonable and moral certainty that the accused and no one else committed the offense charged. It is not sufficient that the facts create a strong proba