Court Opinion

ID: 9865518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 18:36:55.295342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:38.541109
License: Public Domain

Buford, J.,
dissents.
The issue presented in this case for determination here is stated by Mr. Presiding Justice Whitfield in the opinion which he has prepared for the approval of the Court. I am unable to concur in the opinion as written by Mr. Justice Whitfield. The evidence in this case shows that several years prior to the alleged offense Henry C. Beaty was on the police force in Tampa and for a while was called “Harry” by some of the police officers, but that it was learned by the officers that his name was not “Harry” and they, having been corrected, ceased to call him “Harry.” There is no evidence that he was ever called “Harry” from that time until after this alleged offense was alleged to have been committed and while he testified on re-direct examination that he had sometimes been called “Harry,” there is no evidence that he was generally known by the name of .“Harry” nor that he was commonly called “Harry” nor that he was known as well by the name of “Harry” as by the name of “Henry.”
In an information charging an unlawful assault upon a person the name of the person is a part of the description of the offense and.is required to be correctly given, that the person alleged to have been assaulted may be identified by the charge in the information. The information in this *291ease did not otherwise identify the person assaulted except by the name of “Harry C. Beaty.”
There being no other description of the person assaulted in the information, the failure to prove the name as laid in the information is fatal to a conviction. Jacob v. State, 46 Fla. 157; 35 Sou. 65; Wharton’s Criminal Procedure, Sec. 158 page 212; Wharton’s Criminal Evidence, Sec. 94 page 285; 31 Corpus Juris, 848, See. 465; State v. Dudley, 7 Wisc. 664; Lettrell v. State, Tex. 143, S. W. 628; Gandy v. State, 27 Nebr. 707; State v. English, 67 Mo. 136; Lewis v. State, 90 Ga. 95; Irwin v. State, 117 Ga. 722 State v. Hughes, 41 Cal. 234; U. S. v. Howard, 12 Fed. Case No. 15, 403; State v. Sherrill, 81 N. C. 550.
My view of the law of the case is that there was a fatal variance between the allegation of the information and the proof offered in support of the same and that advantage of such variance was duly taken by the accused, and therefore that the judgment of the conviction should be reversed.