Webster v. State

Citations

• 49 Fla. 131

Syllabus

<p>1. If a Circuit Judge fails to attend the court on the first day of the term the statute, provides that “.the court shall stand adjourned until 12 o’clock on the second day;” and if the judge shall not then attend the clerk is required by statute to “adjourn the court to such time as the judge may appoint, or to the next regular term, by law established.” If by order of the judge the court is adjourned to the third day of the term, the premature entry iof the order on the first day adjourning the court to the third day of the term, when the statute adjourned it to the second day, does not cause a lapse of the term. The statute adjourned the court to the second day, and the order of the court though prematurely entered on the record adjourned the court to the third day, and this being within the period designated by law for- the term to be held, the term did not lapse, and the convening and organization of the court pursuant to the adjournment were not thereby ■ made illegal.</p> <p>2. .An indictment for murder in the first degree which charges that the defendant with an axe “feloniously, willfully and of his malice aforethought and from a premeditated design to effect the death of the said E. H. F., the said E. H. F., with the axe aforesaid did strike, cut and wound,” &c., sufficiently charges that the act constituting the efficient cause of the death.was done'from a premeditated design to effect the death of the person assaulted.</p> <p>3. Allegations in an indictment charging that the defendant “feloniously, wilfully and of his malice aforethought and from a premeditated design to effect the death” of the deceased committed the acts resulting in death, sufficiently charge the premeditated design or criminal intent; tne statute does not require a different form of allegation of wilful and deliberate design, or of criminal intent 10 effect death in a charge of murder in the first degree.</p>