Clements v. State

Citations

• 51 Fla. 6

Syllabus

<p>1. In a criminal case brought to an appellate court by writ oerror, where none of the evidence is incorporated in the bill of exceptions and none of the charges given by the court are incorporated either in the regular or in a statutory bill of exceptions, neither the evidence nor the charges given by the trial court are before the appellate court for consideration, and, in their absence, an appellate court must assume that the evidence was sufficient to warrant a conviction and that the charges given correctly set forth the law applicable to the case, every presumption being in favor of the correctness of the verdict and judgment rendered and entered in the trial court.</p> <p>2. In criminal as well as in civil cases an application for a continuance is addressed to the sound judicial discretion . of the trial court, and the denial of such a motion will not be reversed by an appellate court, unless there has been a palpable abuse of this judicial discretion, which must be clearly arid affirmatively made to appear in the bill of exceptions, the rule being that motions for a continuance in criminal cases are to be even more closely scanned than in civil cases, 'because of the greater temptation to delay.</p> <p>3. Evidence of the insanity of a defendant’s ancestors and relatives is not alo’ie competent or sufficient to prove that the defendant is insane, and such evidence can only be used to corroborate other evidence of his insanity. It is not error for the trial court to refuse a continuance in a criminal case in order that defendant may have an opportunity of taking testimony on commission to establish such fact, there being no offer on the part of the defendant to connect such testimony with other testimony to establish the insanity of the defendant at the time of the commission of the offense with which defendant stood charged, and the materiality of the proposed testimony in no wise being made to appear to the court.</p> <p>4. Under section 2912 of the Revise