Wilson v. State

47 Fla. 118
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJanuary 15, 1904
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 47 Fla. 118 (Wilson 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
Wilson v. State, 47 Fla. 118 (Fla. 1904).

Opinion

Cockrell, J.

— The plaintiff in error was convicted of the crime of embezzlement of a horse worth $105, and sentenced to the State prison for a term of three years.

There was evidence from which the jury might find that Wilson hired from one Miller at Tampa a horse and buggy to drive to Plant City, and to return the next day, for an agreed price of five dollars for the trip. Tampa and Plant City are both in Hillsborough county. After reaching Plant City Wilson continued on to Lakeland in Polk county, which he reached that night, and placed the horse in a livery stable there. As soon as he could find the liveryman he represented that he was in need of fifteen dollars to enable him to go to Orlando to see an uncle, and saying: “I will leave the horse and buggy here with you and will return to-night or to-morrow and pay you the money,” secured from the liveryman to whom he was an entire stranger, the sum desired. Upon securing the money he went on to Orlando and thence to Sanford and into Marion county, where he was arrested sometime after. The Tampa man from whom the horse was obtained found it in Lakeland.

The first error assigned is that the court erred in denying the motion of defendant to strike the answer of the witness Miller that “I went to get my horse and had to pay $15.00 before I could come in possession of him.” A sufficent answer to this assignment is found in the fact shown [121]*121by the record that this answer was subsequently stricken and the jury instructed to disregard it. The error, if any, was fully corrected below and no harm was done thereby. The next alleged error was also harmless. We do not see that the statement of the witness Miller that he drove his horse back to Tampa from Lakeland could possibly have injured'the accused under the admitted facts of this record.

The third assignment is the refusal to permit the defendant to prove that his father offered to return Miller any expense he had been put to in the matter. We do not see what possible bearing on the innocence of the defendant such testimony could have, and there was no error in excluding it.

The next assignment is that the court erred in permitting J. Q. Adams, the Lakeland liveryman, to be asked, and to answer the question “would you have let him have the money if he had not left the horse and buggy with you?” to which the answer was “no sir, because I did not know him, but if he left the horse and buggy with me I was sure he would return and bring back my money.” No motion was made to strike the answer. The State was endeavoring to show-that the conversion was felonious and in this it had shown the hiring of the horse to go only, to Plant City and the actual going to Lakeland in another county, the borrowing of the money from the liveryman there by defendant who was a total stranger and the leaving of the horse and buggy with the liveryman, and it was pertinent for the State to prove that this leaving was by way of pledge or pawn. The contract is to be gathered from the situation of the parties and the language used by them, and it was competent to show that one party thereto understood the transaction to have been a pledging of the property. Without determining whether the transaction was in law a pledge, it suffices here to say that the answer elicited tended rather to help the defense and could not therefore be considered reversible error.

[122]*122The defendant was asked by the State: “When you got that money from Mr. Adams and left that horse and buggy there with him, he being an entire stranger to you, did you tell him that this horse and buggy did not belong to you?” The defendant on the direct examination had testified that he did not tell Mr. Adams that the horse and buggy were his (defendant’s). There is no fact assumed in the question that was not admitted by the defendant. The concealment of the ownership of the horse was a material circumstance, and it was not improper for the State to set off against the defendant’s statement that he had not claimed the horse as his, the further fact that he did not disclose that the horse was not his. The next assignment may well be considered in connection with this. The defendant was asked: “Did you not know at that time that if you had told Mr. Adams that you didn’t own that horse and buggy that he would not have let you have the money?” and answered: “Why, I did not get any money on the horse; didn’t give any security or anything. I made the acquaintance of Mr. Adams and borrowed the money from him.” It appears, therefore, the question objected to was not answered, nor was it further pressed by the State. A felonious design is to be gathered from various acts and circumstances, and the defendant having voluntarily offered himself as a witness, might properly be questioned on cross-examination as to matters within his own breast, particularly when an opportunity is thus offered for explanation of suspicious circumstances.

The attorney for the State was permitted over the defendant’s objection to address the jury as follows: “Don’t you know if there had been any Thomas F. Davis, he (meaning defendant) would have had him here as a witness to show that he was at Orlando, and that defendant had gone there and asked him for money.” The defendant had testified that he had gone to Plant City to find Davis to get money from him, but not finding him there had gone on to Lakeland, and thence to Orlando where he found Davis, [123]*123but did not get any money from him because he too was “broke.”

In Sylvester v. State, 46 Fla. 166, 35 South. Rep. 142, we said: “This court will not scrutinize with nicety the logical force of arguments made by counsel assigned as ground for reversal,” and in Mitchell v. State, 43 Fla. 584, 31 South. Rep. 242, “it is not reversible error for the court to refuse to interfere with the argument of counsel because it is illogical, or not based on deductions reasonably infer-able from the facts.” No fact, not in evidence, was assumed by the attorney and tested by the above rules, there is no ground for reversal.

The eighth and eleventh assignments are based on the refusal to give charges amounting practically to an affirmative direction to find the defendant not guilty. In the consideration of the evidence under another head we hold it sufficient' to support the verdict, thus affirming the propriety of the court’s refusal to charge as requested, and we need not, therefore, now determine whether the defendant in a criminal case is ever entitled as of right to a peremptory charge. See McCray v. State, 45 Fla. 80, 34 South. Rep. 5.

The ninth assignment is the refusal to charge that if the jury should find certain facts the defendant was guilty of larceny and for that reason should be acquitted of the charge of embezzlement. We do not think there was sufficient testimony in this record to authorize a charge on larceny within the rule laid down in Finlayson v. State, 46 Fla. 81, 35 South. Rep. 203, and there was no error in refusing the charge.

The tenth, twelfth and thirteenth assignments may 'be treated together. They are all based upon the refusal to give requested charges, which are all subject to the common vice, that they pick out and emphasize certain phases of the evidence as to the fraudtdent conversion to the exclusion of the rest of the evidence in the case on that point; or, to use the language of this court in Kennard, v. State, 42 Fla. 581, 28 South. Rep. 858, they “are predicated upon an [124]

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Bluebook (online)
47 Fla. 118, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilson-v-state-fla-1904.