Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

127 Fla. 225

172 So 921

Brown v. State

Supreme Court of Florida

Decided March 4, 1937

Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1937-03-04

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1937-03-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently September 1982

17 state decisions

80193719401950196019701980decided

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 →

Buford, J.

¶1 The writ of error brings for review conviction of the offense of larceny of certain cattle' described as “four cows marked crop split under bit in one ear, swallow fork in other ear and branded JE, a better and more particular, description of said four cows being to affiant unknown.”

¶2 *226 The State relied in part upon circumstantial evidence for a conviction of the accused in this case. Without the circumstantial evidence there was not sufficient direct evidence upon which to base a conviction. The circumstantial evidence adduced to supplement the direct evidence did not meet the rule that when circumstantial evidence is relied on for a conviction the circumstances proved must be so strong and cogent as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except the defendant’s guilt. All of the circumstances relied upon to supply the deficiency of direct evidence could have been trüe and yet the accused could have, under a reasonable hypothesis, been innocent of the offense charged. These enunciations are so elementary that it requires no citation of authorities to support either of them.

¶3 For the reasons stated, the judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.

¶4 It is so ordered.

¶5 Reversed and remanded.

Ellis, C. J., and Whitfield, Terrell, Brown and Davis, J. J., concur.
/127/fla/225 · .json · Public domain