Hawkins v. State

Citations

• 32 Fla. 248

Syllabus

<p>■Criminal law — charges, when taken by the jury to their ROOM, SHOULD NOT HAVE EXTRANEOUS MATTER WRITTEN THEREON THAT TENDS TO INJURY OF PRISONER.</p> <p>Where the judge inadvertently writes the word “guilty” on the margin of an instruction given to the jury, and permits the instructions thus written upon to be taken by the jury to their room: Held, (1) that the presumption is that the extraneous word was read by the jury, unless the contrary was clearly shown; (2) that as the writing of such word by the judge was capable of and tended towards influencing the jury detrimentally to the defendants, that the presumption was that it did so influence them unless the contrary was clearly shown; and’ that the burden was upon the State to show beyond a reasonable doubt that such writing upon the charge was not read by the jury; or, if read by them, that it did not result in injury to the. defendants; and (3) that such word written upon the charge and sent with the jury to their room, was reversible error, unless it clearly appeared that no injury resulted to the defendants therefrom.</p>