Adams v. State

Citations

• 34 Fla. 185

Syllabus

<p>'CRIMINAL LAW — FORMER JEOPARDY — DIOHAEGE OF JURY BEFORE VERDICT — EXCLAMATIONS OF CHILDREN AS PART OF RES GESTAE INADMISSIBLE WHEN — WHEN PARTY MAY IMPEACH HIS OWN WITNESS.</p> <p>1. Section 1093 R. S. providing as follows: “When a jury after due and thorough deliberation upon any cause, shall return into court without having agreed on a verdict, the court may explain to them anew the law applicable to the case, and may send them out again for further deliberation; but if they shall return a second time without having agreed on a verdict, they shall not be sent out again without their consent, unless they shall asii from the court some further explanation of the law,’’ is applicable alike to both civil and criminal eases; and confers upon juries the legal right to bo discharged from any cause, when, after clue anct thorough deliberation, they come into court for the second time, after being recharged, and avow their inability to agree upon a verdict, without requesting further explanation of the law. The statute is designed to put a limitation upon the right of the court to detain a jury indefinitely in any cause, after it is ascertained that on due and thorough deliberation it is impossible for them to agree upon a verdict. A plea interposed by the defendant in a criminal cause, claiming an abatement of the prosecution on the around of former jeopardy. that shows upon its face that the discharge of the jury before verdict, at the trial urged as the former jeopardy, was done in conformity to the provisions of this statute, is properly o verru led upon demurrer thereto: particularly where the same plea shows that before their discharge the jury reported some of their number to be sick.</p> <p>2. Where a little child, who, at three and a half years of age, was a by standing spectator of a homicide, proves, nearly two years subsequent to the occurrence, not to be possessed of sufficient comprehension and intelligence to be comp>etent then to testify as a witness,