Goff v. State

Citations

• 75 Fla. 87
• 77 So. 877

Syllabus

<p>1. It is not error to refuse to give a requested instruction when the matters of law embraced therein had been fully and more correctly previously given in the general charge.</p> <p>2. When the time intervening between a homicide and the defendant’s acts or statements does not appear, such statements or acts cannot be admitted as a part of the res gestae.</p> <p>3. All declarations and acts of the parties to a transaction which are contemporaneous with and accompany it, and are calculated to throw light upon the motives and intention of the parties to it are admissible as parts of the res géstate. A more liberal statement of the rule as announced by many recent decisions is that not only such declarations and acts as accompany the transaction are admissible as parts of the. res gestae, but also such as are made or performed under such circumstances as will--mise, a-reasonable presumption that they are the spontaneous utterance or act created by or springing out of the transaction itself and so soon thereafter as to exclude the presumption that they were- the result of premeditated design.</p> <p>4. The refusal of the trial court to grant a new trial for insufficiency of evidence to sustain the verdict, or because the verdict is contrary to the evidence, will 'not-be reversed, unless, after allowing all reasonable presumptions of its correctness, the preponderance of the evidence against the verdict is so decided as to clearly convince the appellate court that is wrong and unjust.</p>