Cochran v. State

Citations

• 65 Fla. 91
• 61 So. 187

Syllabus

<p>1. When it appears that no injury could accrue to a defendant by an irregularity not amounting to a substantial departure from the requirements of law in the selection and empanel-ling of jurors, an objection thereto should not avail.</p> <p>2. Where the insanity of the accused is a material issue in a criminal prosecution, the court should by charges appropriate to the evidence in the case, submit to the jury for their determination the question whether the accused at the time of the unlawful ac-t alleged against him had a sufficient degree of reason to know that he was doing an act that was wrong.</p> <p>3. In order to acquit on the ground of insanity, a defendant charged with homicide, he must have been insane at the time the unlawful act was committed.</p> <p>4. It is not sufficient that a defendant was insane before or after or both before and after an alleged unlawful act, but he must have been insane at the particular moment of the homicide. If, however, insanity of a permanent type or continuing nature, or characterized by a habitual and confirmed disorder of the mind, not temporary or occasional, is shown to have existed prior to the commission of the act, it would be presumed to continue up to the commisison of the act, unless the presumption be overcome by competent evidence.</p> <p>5. The mental effects of a mere voluntary intoxication may not excuse the commission of an unlawful act or relieve from its consequences; but if excessive and long continued use of intoxicants produces a mental condition of insanity permanent or intermittent, which insane condition exists when an unlawful act is committed, such insane mental condition may be of a nature that would relieve the person so affected from the consequences of the act that would otherwise be criminal and punishable</p> <p>6. Where there is substantia] though conflicting evidence of a mental unsoundness of the accused at the time of the unlawful act alleged, which mental condition was not caused by