Weightnovel v. State

Citations

• 46 Fla. 1

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Caw — Manslaughter, Resulting From Attempt to Procure Miscarriage oe Woman — Indictment—Evidence— Signing Charges.</p> <p>1. An information that charges that the named defendant, “with force and arms, at and in the county of Hillsborough and State aforesaid, in and upon one Irene Randall did then and there unlawfully, feloniously and wilfully make an assault, and did . then and there thrust and strike a certain instrument, a more particular description of which instrument is to the solicitor aforesaid unknown, which he the said Frederick N.Weightnovel then and there held in his right hand, up and into the body and womb of one Irene Randall, with the .criminal intent then and there to cause the said Irene Randall to miscarry, the same not-being then and there necessary to preserve the life of the said Irene Randall, nor had two physicians, advised the same to be necessary to preserve the life of the said Irene Randall, thereby then and there inflicting on the said Irene Randall, in and about her womb and other internal parts certain mortal bruises, wounds and lacerations, and creating in the said Irene Randall a mortal sickness and feebleness of body, of which mortal . bruises, wounds, lacerations, sickness and feebleness of body the said Irene Randall did then and there languish, and thence continually languished until on the twelfth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and two, the said Irene Randall did then and there die,” is sufficient to charge the crime of manslaughter under our general statute defining manslaughter, section 2384, Revised Statutes; and it sufficiently charges the person slain to have been a woman in its use of the pronoun “her” and in the female name it assigns to her, and in its allegation that the wounds were inflicted on the “womb.”</p> <p>2. Declarations of the deceased prior to her death relative to matters pertinent to the issues on trial that tend to show the defendant’s guilt, are admissible in evid