Graham v. State

Citations

• 72 Fla. 510
• 73 So. 594

Syllabus

<p>1. The arguments and comments of counsel in the progress of a trial before a jury are controllable in the judicial discretion of the trial court, and an appellate court will not interfere with the exercise of such discretion, unless a clear abuse thereof has been made to appear.</p> <p>2. When a defendant in a criminal prosecution conceives that the State Attorney has used improper and harmful language in his argument to the jury, in order to have the same reviewed by an appellate court it must be made to appear that such language was brought to the attention of the trial court, a ruling obtained thereon and exception taken to such ruling.</p> <p>3. Requested instructions, though announcing correct principles of law applicable to the case, are properly refused where such principles are fully covered in.other instructions given at the trial, even though couched in different language.</p> <p>4. A requested instruction relating to self-defense is properly refused when, taken as an entirety, it does not contain a correct statement of the law upon self-defense.</p> <p>5. Detached portions of a charge should be considered in connection with the charge as a whole, and with the evidence adduced at the trial; and when so considered, if they are noi subject to the criticism urged against them the assignments of error based thereon fail.</p> <p>6. Where a charge or an instruction, as far as it goes, states a correct proposition of law, but is defective because it fails to qualify or explain the proposition it lays down in consonance with the facts of the case, such defect is cured if subsequent instructions are given containing the required qualifications or exceptions. It is not required that a single charge or instruction should contain all the law relating to the particular subject treated therein.</p> <p>7. In determining the correctness of charges and instructions, they should be considered as a whole; and if, as a whole, they are free from error, an assignment predica