42 Fla. 199 | Fla. | 1900
Plaintiff in error was tried and convicted in the Criminal Court of Record of Duval County upon an information charging her with receiving and aiding in the
The information was filed: June 27, 1899, plaintiff in error was arraigned and pleaded not guilty on the same day and the trial was had on the 29th. The entries in the record proper show that on June 28th six jurors, naming them, were, “for reasons satisfactory to the court, excused from further jury duty at this term,” there being at the time fourteen jurors in attendance, and a special venire was directed to issue for “six good and lawful men to be summoned from the body of the county returnable instanter,” which was duly issued, served and returned the same day. Before the trial, on the 29th, plaintiff in error moved to' quash this special venire on the ground that certain jurors, naming' those who had been excused on June 28, “were discharged on the second day of the term without the consent of the defendant and without the authority of law.” This motion was overruled.
I. The first assignment of error is that the court erred in not granting the motion to quash the special venire issued and jurors summoned on the 28th day of June, 1899, and discharging six jurors who were drawn on the regular venire to serve for the week or term. No proof was submitted in support of the motion to- quash the special venire, and neither the bill of exceptions nor the record entries show facts to sustain the ground upon which the motion was based, vis: that six jurors were discharged without the authority of law. On the contrary, the record entries show that the six jurors named were excused (not discharged) for reasons satisfactory to the court, but the reasons for excusing them are not stated either in the record entries or in the bill of excep
Plaintiff in error asks us to accept as proof of the grounds of objection stated in the motion to quash an affidavit made by her attorney and presented to the court below on the hearing of the motion for a new trial in support of the seventh ground of that motion which complained that the remarks of the judge mentioned in the affidavit were published in a newspaper, and read by the jury that tried plaintiff in error, which it was claimed had a tendency to influence them to render a verdict of guilty in this case. No assignment of error is based upon this ground of the motion for a new trial and the affidavit was not used upon the hearing of the motion to quash the special venire — in fact it was not made until after the trial of the case. Even if we can
II. Plaintiff in error requested the court to instruct the jury that “the fact that the goods or money was found in the possession of the defendant is not sufficient alone to. sustain a. conviction, nor is the fact that the defendant denied having received the goods, or money sufficient alone to sustain a conviction.” This instruction could not have been without a misleading tendency on the minds of the jury, if it had been given. The facts stated in the instruction, viz: that plaintiff in error was found in possession- of the stolen money and denied hav
III. The other assignments of error are that the court erred in refusing the grounds of the motion for a new trial which alleged that the verdict was contrary to the law, the evidence and the instructions of the court. We are of the opinion that the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict, and that the verdict is not contrary to the evidence, the law or the instructions of the court.
The judgment is affirmed.