O'Berry v. State

47 Fla. 75
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJanuary 15, 1904
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 47 Fla. 75 (O'Berry v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
O'Berry v. State, 47 Fla. 75 (Fla. 1904).

Opinion

Shackleford, J.

(after stating the facts). — The first, second, third and fourth errors assigned are all based upon the, order made by the court granting the motion of the State Attorney for a change of venue of said cause from the Circuit Court for Osceola county, in which said county [81]*81the indictment was found and wherein the defendant resided, to the Circuit Court for Brevard county. The forty-third error- assigned is based upon the overruling of the defendant’s motion in arrest of judgment. All of these assignments may be considered together.

Section 11 of the Declaration of Rights of our present constitution, which was adopted by the constitutional convention of 1885, and went into effect on the first day of January, 1887, reads as follows: “In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury, in the county where the crime was committed, and shall be heard by himself, or counsel, or both, to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him to meet the witnesses against him face to face, and have compulsory process for the attendance of witnesses in his favor, and shall be furnished with a copy of the indictment against him.”

Section 2358 of the Revised Statutes of 1892 is as follows: “All criminal causes shall be tried in the county where the offense was committed, except when otherwise provided by law.”

Sections 2926, 2927, 2928 and -2929 of said Revised Statutes are as follows:

2926. “Change of venue may be had only in the Circuit Court and in cases cognizable therein, and when the venue is changed from the Circuit Court of a county, it shall be changed only to a county in which the Circuit Court has by law cognizance of the case.”

2927. “When it shall appear to the satisfaction of the court by affidavit that a fair and impartial trial can not be had in the county where the crime was committed, the court may direct the accused to be tried in some adjoining county where a fair and impartial trial may be had, but the accused shall be entitled to but one change of the place of trial.”

2928. “The judge of the Circuit Court may order a change of venue in all criminal cases, when he shall be [82]*82satisfied that it is impracticable to get a qualified jury to try the same in the county in which the crime was committed.”

2929. “The change of venue provided for in the last two sections may be ordered upon the application either of the prosecuting attorney or of the defendant, upon affidavit setting forth the necessity for such change.”

Chapter 4394 of the laws of Florida, approved June 1, 1895, and found on page 159 of the acts of 1895, reads as follows:

“Section 1. That whenever it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the presiding judge of any of the Circuit Courts of this State, that the venue of any cause, civil or criminal, then pending in such court, should for any of the grounds now prescribed by law, be changed, it shall be in the power and discretion of such judge to change the venue of such cause, civil or criminal, as the case may be, from the Circuit Court of the county where such cause is at the time pending to the Circuit Court of any other county within the same circuit — but said judge shall not be compelled to transfer said cause to an adjoining county.
Sec. 2. That whenever the venue of any cause, civil or criminal, pending in any of the Circuit Courts of this State, shall have been once changed from the Circuit Court of the county where said cause was originally instituted to the Circuit Court of some other county in the same circuit, and it is afterwards made to appear to the satisfaction of the presiding judge of such last named court, that any of the grounds now prescribed by law, for a change of venue, exist in and apply to said last mentioned county, it shall be within the power and discretion of the presiding judge of such court to grant a second change of venue of said cause, and to transfer the same from the Circuit Court of the county where said cause is then pending to the Circuit Court of any other county in said circuit, in the same manner, and under the same rules and practice that governed the change of venue of said cause, in the first instance. [83]*83provided that said cause shall not be returned to the county from which it was originally transferred.
Sec. 3. That all laws and parts of laws in conflict with this act be, and the same are hereby repealed.
Sec. 4. That this act shall take effect immediately upon its passage and approval by the governor.”

The above cited section of the Declaration of Rights in the constitution and all of the above cited statutes were before this court for consideration and construction in the case of Hewitt v. State, 43 Fla. 194, 30 South Rep. 795. The second headnote of the opinion in that case is as follows : “The statutes in force in this State in reference to change of venue in criminal cases without the consent of the accused (sections 2928 and 2929, Revised Statutes, and chapter 4394, laws of 1895), authorize the court to direct a change of venue when an impartial jury can not be secured in the county where the offense is alleged to have been committed, and limiting their meaning to authorize the change without the consent of the accused when it is impossible to secure an impartial jury in the county where the offense was committed, they are constitutional.”

We are of the opinion that the conclusion reached in said case and the principles enunciated in the opinion rendered therein are correct. Applying those principles to the case at bar, what do we find? In the case of Hewitt v. State, supra, the defendants therein did not interpose any objections to the order made by the court transferring said cause and changing the venue from the Circuit Court for Bradford county to the Circuit Court for Duval county, and neither did said defendants make any objections when the case came on for trial in the Circuit Court for Duval county. In the case at bar the defendant not only objected in the Circuit Court for Osceola county to the granting of the motion on behalf of the State for a change of venue, duly excepting to the order so made by the court, but, when the case was called for trial in the Circuit Court for Brevard county, again questioned the validity of said order [84]*84of transfer by interposing a plea to the jurisdiction of the court, to which plea the demurrer of the State was susstained. Again, after his conviction by the jury, the defendant renewed his objections to the validity of said order by filing and presenting a motion in arrest of judgment, which was overruled by the court. It would seem, then, that the defendant in the case at bar had made his objections to and registered his protests against the change of venue in every way that he well could.

Another important distinction exists between the case of Hewitt v. State, and the case at bar. In the Hewitt case there had been one trial of the defendants, which resulted in the acquittal of one of them and a disagreement as to the other two defendants. At another trial, at a subsequent term of the court, after the exhaustion of two special venires, one for one hundred jurors and the other for twenty-five, and the issuance of another for thirty jurors, the court then

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Bluebook (online)
47 Fla. 75, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/oberry-v-state-fla-1904.