Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

107 Fla. 90

144 So 323

Skiff v. State

Supreme Court of Florida

Decided October 20, 1932

Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1932-10-20

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[t]he previous chaste character of the alleged victim is a material fact to be proved [by the state].”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 397 So. 2d 1120 - Tibbs v. State

“much convincing evidence of her previous unchaste character.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 239 So. 2d 284 - Smith v. State

Relies on Fuller v. State · Coker v. State · Nims v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1932-10-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently April 1981

15 state decisions

80193219401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Per Curiam.

¶1 The plaintiff in error was convicted of the statutory offense denounced by section 5409 R. G. S., 7552 C. G. L.

¶2 The previous chaste character of the alleged victim is a material fact to be proved. The evidence in the instant ease of the previous chastity of the alleged victim is far from convincing. In fact, the record discloses much convincing evidence of her previous unchaste character and in the motion for new trial, one ground of which was the existence of newly discovered evidence, the defendant in the court below presented the affidavits of three persons in which further proof of her unchaste character is portrayed.

¶3 We are convinced that justice demands a new trial.

¶4 The judgment will be reversed upon authority of the opinions and judgments in the cases of Nims v. State, 70 Fla. 530, 70 Sou. 565; Fuller v. State, 92 Fla. 873, 110 Sou. 528; Ming v. State, 89 Fla. 280, 103 Sou. 618; Platt v. State, 65 Fla. 253, 61 Sou. 502; Townsend vs. State, 95 Fla. 139, 116 Sou. 7; Coker vs. State, 83 Fla. 672, 93 Sou. 176; Knowles vs. State, 86 Fla. 270, 97 Sou. 716; Davis vs. State, 76 Fla. 179, 79 Sou. 450.

¶5 It is so ordered.

Buford, C.J., and Whitfield, Terrell and Brown, J.J., concur. Davis, J., disqualified.
/107/fla/90 · .json · Public domain