WALLACE RUIS AND JOHN DAVIS, PLAINTIFFS IN ERROR,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, DEFENDANT IN ERROR
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The Florida Supreme Court reversed the convictions of Wallace Ruis and John Davis for assault with intent to commit murder, holding that the indictment was defectively pleaded because it failed to properly allege the intent to commit a felony as a material fact rather than as a mere legal conclusion.
The indictment was fatally defective because it failed to charge the intent to commit a felony with the certainty required for material allegations. The court held that a mere statement of intent in the conclusion of an indictment by way of legal deduction or inference from previously alleged facts is insufficient under Florida law.
“the information or indictment must charge the intent with which the assault was made with that certainty required as to other material allegations, and that a mere statement of such intent in the conclusion of the information or indictment, by way of legal deduction or inference from facts previously alleged, was not sufficient”
Establishes the pleading standard required by Florida law for assault with intent to commit a felony; intent must be charged as a material fact, not as a legal conclusion
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceRuis and Davis were indicted in Baker County Circuit Court in Fall 1900 for an assault on O. B. Sweat committed on July 13, 1898, using a pistol and g…
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Mabry, J.
Plaintiffs in error were convicted and sentenced in the Circuit Court for Baker county at the Fall term, A. D. 1900. The Indictment returned against them, and upon which they were tired, charged in its body that they “on the 13th day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, in the county and State aforesaid, in and upon one O. B. Sweat, with a certain deadly weapon, towit: a pistol and a gun, which they, the said Wallace Ruis and John Davis, then and there held in their hands, an assault did make, they the said Wallace Ruis and John Davis, having then and there a premeditated design to effect the death of the said O. B Sweat, contrary to the statute.”
A motion was made to quash the indictment on several grounds questioning its efficiency, but the court overruled the motion and defendants excepted to the ruling, and now assign it as error. We think the court erred in this ruling. This indictment can not be sustained under our descision in the case of Hogan v. State, 42 Fla. 562, 28 South. Rep.
763. Our statute provides that “whoever commits an assault on another, with intent to commit any felony punishable with death or imprisonment for life shall be punished by imprisonment in the State prison not exceeding twenty years. An assault with intent to commit any other felony shall be punished to an extent not exceeding one-half the punishment which could have been inflicted had the crime been committed.” Revised Statutes § 2403. The evident purpose of this statute is to punish assaults made with intent to commit a substantive crime of felony, and this intent is the gist of the of- fence in assaulting another with the design to commit a felony. Williams v. State, 41 Fla. 295, 26 South Rep. 184, and cases cited. We held in the Hogan case, supra, that the information or indictment must charge the intent with which the assault was made with that certainty required as to other material allegations, and that a mere statement of such intent in the conclusion of the information or indictment, by way of legal deduction or inference from facts previously alleged, was not sufficient. In this respect the indictment now before us is more defective than the information in the Hogan, case. It is alleged that defendants made an assault upon one O.
B. Sweat on a certain day with a pistol and gun, but it is not stated that the assault was made with the intent to commit any felony. It is stated that, the defendants did then and there —that is, on the day and in the county mentioned — have a premeditated design to effect the death of Sweat, but this is in the conclusion without any proper connection in point of time with the making of the assault. Again the asault must be made with the intent to commit a felony, and the indictment states simply as a conclusion that defendants had a premeditated design to effect death.
The judgment of the court below will be reversed with directions to sustain the motion to quash the indictment and for such further proceedings as may be consistent with law. So ordered.
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Citator
Cited By
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Barber v. State, 52 Fla. 5 (Fla. 1906)…rder,” are sufficient allegations that the assault was made with intent to commit a felony, and that the intent existed at the time of the assault, thereby distinguishing this case from Hogan v. State, 42 Fla. 562, 28 South. Rep. 763; Ruis v. State, 43 Fla. 186, 30 South. Rep. 802. See Anderson v. State, supra; Brinkley v. State, supra; Gray v. State, supra. See as to the effect of the words “thereby [*12] and by thus striking,” Daniels v. State, 52 Fla., 18, 41 South. Rep. 609. The words “unlawfully, felo…
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Johnson v. State, 53 Fla. 45 (Fla. 1907)…or. The argument is that the words “unlawfully and from a premeditated design to effect the death of the said David Padgett” are not sufficiently broad and comprehensive to cover the stautory intent to commit the felony of murder, and Ruis v. State, 43 Fla. 186, 30 South. Rep. 802, is cited in support. The position is untenable. See Barber v. State, decided at the last term of this court, 42 So. 86. The testimony is ¡short and not altogether clear in some aspects. It appeal’s that Johnson had unsuccessful…
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Gray v. State, 44 Fla. 436 (Fla. 1902)…it may serve as evidence to establish such intent. The information bere, we think, avoids the infirmity pointed out in the information and indictment, respectively, in the cases of Hogan v. State, 42 Fla. 562, 28 South. Rep. 763, and Ruis v. State, 43 Fla. 186, 30 South. Rep. 802, in which cases it was held that the information in the one and the indictment in the other failed to sufficiently allege that the assaults charged therein were made with the intent to murder. The information here is sufficient i…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Will Williams v. State, 41 Fla. 295 (Fla. 1899)
- Archibald Hogan and William Hogan v. State, 42 Fla. 562 (Fla. 1900)