Case ID: fla_78/html/0114-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Bass Higginbotham, Plaintiff in Error, v. The State of Florida, Defendant in Error.
    
    Opinion Filed July 14, 1919.
    Where on an indictment charging the larceny of “one bull, one steer, one cow,” the testimony relates to the larceny of a' cow and there is no evidence of the larceny of a bull, a verdict' of “guilty of larceny of one bull,” is not supported by the evidence.
    A Writ of Error to the Circuit Court for DeSoto County; John S. Edwards, Judge.
    Judgment reversed.
    
      W. D. Bell, for Plaintiff in Error:
    
      Van C. Swearingen, Attorney General, and W. W. Trammell, Assistant, for the State.
   Per Curiam.

— Higginbotham was charged with the larceny of “one bull, one steer, one cow, of the property of Richard Windham.” The jury found him “guilty of larceny of one bull belonging to Richard Windham.” Writ of error was taken to a penitentiary sentence.

The evidence is that the defendant below was discovered skinning a cow; and there is no evidence that the defendant committed larceny of a bull. Even if the evidence is sufficient to support a finding of larceny of a cow belonging to Richard Windham, the verdict is “guilty of larceny of one lull,” when the only evidence relates to a “cow” or to an “animal,” no reference being made to a lull in the testimony.

The verdict has no legal basis in the evidence and the judgment is reversed for a new trial.

Browne, C. J., and Taylor, Whitfield and Ellis, J. J., concur.