33 Fla. 308 | Fla. | 1894
The plaintiff in error was indicted, tried and convicted in the Circuit Court for Leon county of an assault with intent to murder, and the only question presented for our consideration, on the writ of error, is the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict. The testimony is sufficient, in our judgment, to sustain the verdict of the jury, and there is no valid ground for our interference. The party (Washington Preston) upon whom the assault was committed testified for the State that he was getting ready to gin and pack cotton at a certain gin house, and had been mending the gin band and his knife was open in his hand. That the accused came into the gin house, and walking towards where he was standing, asked him if he had made a certain statement in reference to her. The
This testimony, if accepted as true by the jury, is-sufficient to sustain the verdict. The accused had heard of the statement made by Preston in reference to-beating her, and she armed herself with a cane knife, which we must accept, in view of the statement in the-bill of exceptions, as a deadly weapon, and went' to the gin-house to ascertain the truth of the matter. When informed by Preston that he had made the-statement, she, without any overt act on his part tending to do her any personal violence, assaulted -him with tae knife which she had concealed, and which the jury had the right to believe she had carried to the gin-house for the purpose of using it in an attack on him. If the accused had, under the circumstances mentioned, inflicted a wound upon Preston resulting in his death, she would have been guilty of murder. 1 There would have been no legal justification in taking his. life under the circumstances. The intent with which the assault was made can be deduced from the concealed weapon, the nature of the attack, and the object of the visit to the gin-house. There is testimony in opposition to that introduced by the State, the substance of which we have given, but we can not set aside a verdict on account of a conflict in the evidence when there is sufficient, if accepted as true by the jury, to sustain it. Saunders Walker testified for the accused that after the conversation between her and Preston, as given above, he advanced towards her, when she advanced on him and Cut him wit]} the cane knife which she had in her hand. George Yanhorn testified that he saw the accused go up stairs, but did not know what she went for, and he did not expect any difficulty. He heard a row and went up stairs and
The testimony, in our judgment, is sufficient to sustain the verdict, and the judgment must therefore be-, affirmed.