Feagle v. State

Citations

• 55 Fla. 13

Syllabus

<p>1. The court gave the following instruction: “And if you should find from the evidence that the defendant, D. F., assaulted D. H. with intent to perpetrate any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual then you should find him guilty of an assault with an intent to commit murder.” Held, this instruction to be error because it omits the requirement that there must have been an intent to kill on the part of the defendant and only requires an intent to perpetrate any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life.</p> <p>2. Whoever unlawfully assaults another with an intention to kill him but not from a premeditated design to effect his death, and the assault is accompanied by an act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life is guilty of an assault with an intent to commit murder in the second degree.</p> <p>3. If an assault be committed unlawfully and with an intent to take life, but not from a premeditated design to take life, and not by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, it would be an assault with an intent to commit manslaughter.</p> <p>4. An instruction that permits the jury to discard so much and such parts of the evidence as is deemed “worthy of belief” is erroneous.</p>