Jenkins v. State

Citations

• 58 Fla. 62

Syllabus

<p>1. Questions on the cross-examination must be confined, to the matters elicited on the direct, unless to test memory, credibility etc.</p> <p>2. Error in excluding a question is without injury where the question is afterwards answered without objections.</p> <p>3. Where it is sought to show drunkenness of the defendant in excuse for crime, questions not limited to the condition of the defendant, but tending to raise the immaterial issue of the use of intoxicating liquor by “the boys” are properly excluded.</p> <p>4. Paying for stolen property will not purge the original taking of its felony or constitute a defense to a prosecution therefor, and hence evidence of that fact is properly excluded.</p> <p>5. The defendant cannot show self-serving acts before or subsequent to the crime, for this would permit him to make evidence for himself.</p> <p>6. After a witness has been examined in chief and is recalled in rebuttal, the court may properly prevent a simple repetition of his testimony. A party after his examinaticn of a witness and after closing his testimony has no absolute right to recall this witness to establish matters not in rebuttal. Whether this rule ought to be varied is a question for the trial court, and an appellate court, if it interferes at all, will only do so where it sees that injustice has been done through this action.</p> <p>7. To constitute the crime of breaking and entering a store house with intent to commit petit larceny, the defendant must have had an intent to commit the misdemeanor in the house, otherwise the breaking and entering would amount to a trespass.</p> <p>8. Upon the trial of a defendant for breaking and entering with intent to commit a misdemeanor, his intoxication, though voluntary, becomes a matter for consideration by the jury with reference to the ability of the accused to form or entertain such intent. If therefore, the defendant was too intoxicated' to entertain or form this essential particular intent, such intent could