Koon v. State

Citations

• 72 Fla. 148
• 72 So. 673

Syllabus

<p>Appellate Practiced—Sending Jury With Prosecuting Witness Out of Court Room—Assignment of Error With No Basis in Record Will Not Be Considered—Effect of Grouping Two or More Refused Instructions in Single Assignment of Error—Motion for New Trial Must Be Made in Criminal Case Within Time Limited By Statute.</p> <p>1. While it is out of the ordinary procedure of trials and irregular to permit the jury trying a criminal case and the prosecuting witness to withdraw from the court room and to enter an adjoining room for the purpose of the exhibition to the jury of his wounds by the prosecuting witness, when neither the defendant nor his counsel were there immediately present with them, yet it will not be’ held to be reversible error when it is not shown that the prosecuting witness held any communication with the jury while in such room, nor exhibited to them his wounds, or that anything else happened in there at all detrimental to the defendant’s rights, and where the record affirmatively shows that the whole episode transpired within the view and hearing of the court and of the defendant and his counsel.</p> <p>2. An assignment of error that has no basis of fact in the record will not be considered.</p> <p>3. Where a defendant has already testified to certain facts without any objection thereto, it is not error if the court subsequently rejects, on objection interposed, his evidence that would have been simply a reiteration in substance of the same testimony already given.</p> <p>4. Where the refusals to give two or more requested instructions are grouped together en masse as a single assignment of error, an appellate court will adjudge such assignment to have failed when it finds that any one of such instructions was properly refused. An assignment of error must prevail or fall as an entirety.</p> <p>5. The provisions of Section 1608 of the General Statutes are mandatory, and fixes an absolute limit of time for making a motion for new trial in a criminal ease; and