Case ID: fla_86/html/0152-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "West, J. Browne, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Neil Brabham, Plaintiff in Error, v. The State of Florida, Defendant in Error.
    
    Opinion Filed July 13, 1923.
    1. It is .not error to refuse to give requested charges which have been substantially given by the trial Court or which are not based' upon the case made by the evidence.
    
      2. Where, upon a trial on a charge of murder in the second degree, the evidence is ample to sustain a verdict of manslaughter, of which there is a conviction, and there is nothing to indicate that the jury were influenced by anything other than a due consideration of the evidence, although there may have been technical errors of procedure not reasonably calculated to affect the 'result, the judgment will be affirmed.
    A Writ of Error to the Criminal Court of Record for Duval County; James M. Peeler, Judge.
    Affirmed.
    
      Miles W. Lewis and Wm. A. Hallowes, Jr., for Plaintiff in Error;
    
      Rivers Buford, Attorney General, and J. B. Gaines, Assistant, for the State.
   West, J.

Plaintiff in error, Neil Braham, was informed against in the Criminal Court of Record of Duval County upon a charge of murder in the second degree. Upon this information he was tried and found guilty of manslaughter. The court adjudged him to be guilty and pronounced sentence committing him to State prison for a term of seven years. Writ of error was taken from this court to review his judgment..

While there are a number of 'assignments of error, two questions only are presented, each of which may be disposed of by application of well settled general principles.

The refusal to give each of a number of requested instructions is assigned as error. Consideration of each of these instructions separately is not necessary. The charge of the court fairly presented the case to the jury. Some of the instructions requested were repetitions, in substance, of instructions given: Others requested were not warranted or required by facts in proof. It is not error to refuse to give requested charges which have been substantially given by the trial court, nor to refuse to give requested charges which are not based upon the case made by the evidence. Milligan v. State, 75 Fla. 815, 78 South. Rep. 535; Settles v. State, 75 Fla. 296, 78 South. Rep. 287.

Other assignments presented the question of the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. No benefit would result from a recital of the substance of the evidence. It is ample to sustain the verdict of manslaughter and there is nothing to indicate that the jury were influenced by anything other than a proper consideration of the evidence submited to them.

So far as the record discloses, plaintiff in error was fairly tried and found guilty by the verdict of a jury composed of citizens of his county who saw and heard all the witnesses. There is nothing in the record to require or warrant a reversal of the judgment. It is therefore affirmed.

Taylor, C. J., and Whitfield, Ellis and Terrell, J. J., ; concur.

Browne, J., dissents.

Browne, J.

Dissenting.

Several correct and clearly expressed instructions on the law of self-defense requested by the defendant, were refused by the trial judge. I think this was harmful error, because the charge on that subject given by the court was not clear nor fair. It was embraced in a paragraph cobtaining 236 words with only one period. The instruction began by telling the jury under what circumstances a plea of self-defense would not be available; contained an inuendo hostile to the defendant’s plea of self-defense, and concluded by reiterating when a plea of self-defense would not be available. The instruction on self-defense was sand-witched between these adverse instructions.

• The instruction on the law of self-defense contains over 200 words, with the law of self-defense qualified by the use of the words “but,” and “unless,” and “provided,” and is so involved, and the English so muddy as to be incapable of conveying to the minds of average jurors an intelligent conception of the law of self-defense.

Lord Macaulay was noted for his long sentences, but few if any of his, contained 200 words. It takes a Lord Macaulay to construct an intelligible sentence of this length. The one containing the instruction on self-defense in this cause certainly does not belong to that class.

A person on trial is entitled not only to have the law correctly stated, but to have it stated clearly and intelligible. That was not done in this ease, and I think the court erred in refusing to give one or more of the instructions requested by the defendant that clearly and correctly stated the law.