209 So. 2d 876 | Fla. Dist. Ct. App. | 1968
This is an original proceeding in prohibition filed in this Court by relator Clayton Alvin Hamm, and is now pending upon application of relator for issuance of Rule Absolute. The facts of the instant case bring it within the direct purview of our opinion and decision announced this same day in the case of State of Florida ex rel. Hand v. Lane, 209 So.2d 873. Upon the authority of the Hand opinion and the numerous cases therein cited, the Rule Absolute must be issued in the case sub judice.
“Q (by defense attorney Vega) Have you had the opportunity to meet professionally Charles Randolph Hamm?
A He was referred to me in March of 1961, after he had stolen a car and wrecked it—
THE COURT: (Gavel) That’s enough.
MR. SCHAUB: (State attorney) I ask for a mistrial, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I will grant it.
And thereupon a mistrial was granted by the Court and the Court having expressed its thanks to the members of the jury for their participation in the trial of this matter, court was thereupon adjourned.”
As we concluded in the Hand case, there was no manifest urgency or necessity to discharge the jury here. The jury had already been sworn, and the trial was running well into its second day, the State had rested and the defense was apparently beginning to conclude. The witness was only a minor character witness. His gratuitous statement that the victim of the homicide, Charles Randolph Hamm, “had stolen a car and wrecked it — ”, was, of course, not proper, but was not such as to be reasonably immune to a cautionary instruction by the Court to the jury. Especially is this true in view of the previous testimony showing commission by the same individual of numerous offenses, some far more serious, and even Court convictions.
It is unnecessary to further prolong this opinion. The Rule Absolute in Prohibition will be issued upon authority of the Hand case, supra.