63 Fla. 55 | Fla. | 1912
— On the 19th day of May, 1911, at a regular term of the Circuit Court for Leon County, an indictment was presented by the grand jury in open
The plea in abatement is quite lengthy and evidently was an earnest attempt to comply with the requirements which this court has laid down concerning such pleas. As we held in Cannon v. State, 62 Fla. 20, 57 South. Rep. 240, “Pleas in abatement, being dilatory, are not favored by the courts and must be strictly construed, they must be certain to certain intent in every particular, they must be unambiguous, and must leave nothing to be supplied by intendment, and must leave no supposable special answer unobviated.” See also the numerous prior decisions of this court therein cited. We do not copy the plea. It is sufficient to state that it avers a failure upon the part of the Board of County Commissioners to comply with the requirements laid down in section 1571 of the General Statutes of 1906, in that
In the demurrer interposed to this replication upon the ground that the same is bad in substance the following matters of law are set forth in support thereof:
“1st. Said replication tenders an immaterial issue.
2nd. Said replication does not join issue upon the fact, that the list required to be made out by and in accordance with Section 1571 General Statutes has never been signed by the Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners of Leon County, Florida, .as required by law, but admits that fact.
3rd. That the replication shows that the minutes of the meeting of January 4th, and 5 th, 1910, when said list was recorded were not approved until after the clerk had placed the names of the persons in the jury box as alleged by the plea.
4th. The replication does not show that the minutes of January 4th and 5th, 1910, were ever signed by the Chairman of said Board.”
The questions which we are called upon by these assignments to answer are did the failure of the Chairman to sign such jury list and the failure of the County Commissioners to have the minutes of the meeting at which such list was entered signed render the grand jury drawn from such list illegal, so that the indictment found and returned by such grand jury against the defendant should be quashed? We would first call attention to the fact that it is not averred in the plea in abatement that the members of the grand jury who found the indictment against the defendant were- not competent and qualified jurors. .For aught that appears to the contrary therein, had the Chairman of the Board of County
The only remaining assignment urged before us is based upon the overruling of the motion for a new trial, which questions the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. We have given the evidence a careful examination and are of the opinion that’ the jurors acting as reasonable men could have found a verdict of manslaughter from such evidence. This being true, we must refuse to disturb the verdict. Andrew v. State, 62 Fla. 10, 56 South. Rep. 681, and former decisions of this court there cited.
Judgment affirmed.