61 Fla. 50 | Fla. | 1911
In January, 1910, in the circuit court of Duval county, Trixie Russell, the plaintiff in error, was indicted for the murder of one William Carter, on the 25th day of December, 1909. She was tried in February, 1910, convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to the penitentiary for the term of four years. She seeks here on writ of error to reverse this judgment.
The only errors assigned here are based on the rulings of the trial court refusing to give certain requested instructions to the jury, to each of which rulings an exception was properly noted. There are five of these instructions, but they all bear upon the right of self-defense by one who is assaulted in his own dwelling house. The first and third of these requested instructions are as follows :
“1. A person’s dwelling house is a castle of defense for himself and his family, and an assault upon it with intent to injure such person or any of them, may be met in the same way as an assault upon himself or any of them, and she may meet the assailant at the threshold and use the force necessary for her or their protection against the threatened invasion and harm.
3. The court instructs the jury that if, while one is lawfully on her own premises, another advances in a threatening manner and under such circumstances that the former believes and has reason to believe that she is in danger of losing her life or of suffering great bodily harm, she is not obliged to retreat but may stand her ground and meet any attack made upon her in such a way and with
The general charge of the trial judge is eminently correct and fair to the defendant as far as it extends, though it does not cover fully the first paragraph of section 3203 General Statutes of 1906, defining justifiable homicide. That paragraph is as follows: “When resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house m which such person shall he.” There is no reference anywhere in the charge to the law regulating the right of self defense when made in one’s own dwelling house.
This court in the case of Wilson v. State, 30 Fla., 234, 11 South. Rep., 556, stated the law on this subject in the following terms: “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.” In 1 Bishop’s Crim. Law, section 858, it is said: “In the early times our forefathers were compelled to protect themselves in their habitations by converting them into holds of defense; and so the dwelling house was called a castle. To this condition of things the law has conformed, resulting in the familiar doctrine that while a man keeps the doors of his house closed, no other may break and enter it, except in particular circumstances to make an arrest or the like — cases not within the line of our present expositions. From this doctrine is derived another, namely, that the persons within the house may exercise all needful force to keep aggressors out, even to the taking of life. As observed by Campbell J., in Michigan, a man is not obliged to retreat if as
We will now examine the evidence to see whether the refused instructions were applicable thereto. Trixie Russel admits she was a prostitute. She lived at No. On Ward street, in the city of Jacksonville, in a house rented by her. She shot William Carter in the hall of her own house with a pistol about 2 o’clock in the morning of the 25th of December, 1909.
A Mr. Baxley testified for the State that he was on Ward street between Jefferson and Bridge Street .about half past one or two o’clock on the morning of the 25th of December, 1909; that when he arrived opposite Trixie Russell’s house, the door was open; that he saw three people standing in the hall, one woman and two men. He went up the steps to the door and saw the woman, shoot three times. He then went back to the sidewalk. The two men came o.ut of the house and the one that was shot sat down on the edge of the porch, and- said “I’m a dead man.” He identified Trixie Russell as the woman who did the
The State’s next witness was Frank Davenport. He was at Trixie Russell’s house on the morning of the 25th of December, 1909, when Mr. Carter came there.(tie says that he was standing, in the door talking to Trix Russell when Carter and his friend came up on the porch, i and they went to the door next to the one where he and Trixie were and they made a lot of racket rapping on the door, and the woman in that room came to the door, and told him to go away — told him “if you don’t I’ll get something and blow your brains out,” and slammed the door in his face. He (presumably) Carter then walked up to where witness and Trixie were standing talking and walked right in — Trixie told him to go out, he did not go, and told her he had as much right there as anybody. So Trixie “walks on in her bed room and gets a gun and shoots him.” The house in which Trixie lived was a double house — two doors — about ten feet apart. When Carter came to the house witness was inside of the door, against the facing. She was leaning against the other door. facing.
D. S. Walker, city sergeant, testified that Trixie Russell told him she shot Carter because he pulled her hair and struck her in the face with a brick.
Trixie Russell testified in substance that on Christmas Eve night about a quarter of eleven o’clock two fellows came to her door and asked to let them in. She saw they were drinking, told them they would have to come back some other night. She did not open the door. They tried to
Police officer, Lee Harrell, testified that Baxley told him he Baxley was standing across the street and that there was no one in the house that saw the shooting.
Willis Jones, a police officer, testified for defendant that he had seen Carter that night before the shooting. Saw him at Evelyn Simpson’s — there was a crowd in there fussing. Evelyn called him in and he found a crowd fussing or fighting and drinking. Carter was in the crowd. He scattered the crowd. He again saw Carter, took him away from the Spanish DeSoto. He and two other fellows were trying to break in. The woman on the inside was trying to keep him out. The officer carried them away from there and told them if he saw them again he would send them in. He did not put them in before, as he had orders to be lenient on Christmas night. He believed Carter had been drinking, he acted that way. He was rough and boisterous. Evelyn Simpson testified for defendant. She ran a house at 714 Ward street. There was rough crowd at her house Christmas night and she called officer Jones to put them out. One of them had a pistol. She did not know Carter. Pauline Hall testified for the State. She lives at 736 Ward street. She knew William Carter. She saw him at her house Christmas Eve night about 12 o’clock. He seemed to be sober. Witness said she was a fast woman.
The foregoing is a synopsis of the principal features of
In determining upon the propriety of requested instructions the testimony of Trixie cannot lie disregarded. It is not disputed that she refused to pWnit Carter to come into her house; that he pushed himself into the hall; that she ordered him out, and that he refused to go. She says that Carter pulled her hair, scratched her face and struck at her with a brick; that he and the man with him would not permit the maid Susie to go for the officer, that she could not escape from the house by door or window and that she shot Carter because she apprehended bodily harm from him. She was in her own house — her castle of defense —where she had a right to be. Carter had no right to be in her house without her consent. He unquestionably was an intruder, a trespasser, under the influence of liquor. We think that the defendant had a right to have the case submitted to the jury under this aspect of the testimony, in appropriate charges, and we think that the two refused instructions hereinbefore set out, were appropriate and should have been given. The other three requested instructions are objectionable for one or another reason.
The judgment is reversed, and a new trial awarded.