JULIUS HERRING
v.
STATE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
Julius Herring was convicted of assault with intent to commit manslaughter after being charged with assault with intent to commit murder. The Florida Supreme Court reversed the conviction due to multiple evidentiary errors, particularly the improper exclusion of character evidence and the admission of irrelevant evidence regarding land possession.
The court held that the trial court committed reversible error by striking the character testimony and admitting irrelevant evidence concerning property rights. A witness who has been personally acquainted with a defendant for a considerable time and in a position to hear community reputation may testify to good character by stating he has never heard anything against the person.
“While a witness is not competent to testify to the reputation of another person unless he can say he believes he knows the general reputation of such person in the community, yet one who has been personally acquainted with another for a considerable length of time and who has been in a position where he probably would have heard that other's reputation talked about were it the subject of comment and who has never heard it questioned may testify to-the good reputation of such person.”
Establishes the legal standard for admissibility of character reputation evidence through acquaintance-based testimony
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceHerring was charged with assault with intent to commit murder and convicted of assault with intent to commit manslaughter. The altercation occurred on…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Reputation Testimony cases and more on FLexlaw
— In this case the plaintiff in. error was' informed against charged with the crime of assault with intent to commit murder and convicted of the crime of as.sault with intent to commit manslaughter.
There are thirty assignments of error. We shall not discuss them separately. Many of the assignments of error are addressed to the alleged errors occurring in the admission of evidence relative to the right of possession of a certain parcel of unfenced open land in the Florida -Everglades, all of which was irrelevant and immaterial and may have been prejudicial to the defendant. The jury was not trying the question of right of possession to the property ■concerning which the altercation appears to have occurred. The question which the jury was required to determine was whether or not defendant unlawfully assaulted the party upon whom he was alleged to have made the assault with a deadly weapon.
During the trial the defendant offered as a witness to prove his reputation as to good character as a peaceable and law-abiding citizen one E. L. Willis, who testified that he *158had lived in the same community with and been personally acquainted with the defendant for the then past five years and that he had never heard anything against defendant’s good character for peace and quietude until the instant difficulty occurred. That he had never heard his character and reputation in this regard discussed in the community. On motion this testimony was stricken. This was error. In Hinson v. State, 59 Fla. 20, 52 Sou. 194, we said:
“While a witness is not competent to testify to the reputation of another person unless he can say he believes he knows the general reputation of such person in the community, yet one who has been personally acquainted with another for a considerable length of time and who has been in a position where he probably would have heard that other’s reputation talked about were it the subject of comment and who has never heard it questioned may testify to-the good reputation of such person. Such a witness may testify to good reputation by saying that he has never heard anything said against the person.”
The evidence is quite conflicting as to who was the aggressor in bringing on the difficulty and as to whether or not the plaintiff in error acted in his lawful self-defense and, therefore, the errors above mentioned will be sufficient tO' warrant a reversal of the judgment. It is so ordered.
Reversed.
Whitbield, P. J., and Brown, J., concur.
Davis, C. J., and Terrell, J., concur in the opinion and judgment.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Huff v. State, 437 So. 2d 1087 (Fla. 1983)…ppellant proffered the testimony of witness Spence who was to testify concerning appellant’s character by the use of negative testimony. While it is permissible to develop this line of evidence by the use of negative testimony, see Herring v. State, 114 Fla. 156, 154 So. 187 (1934), in this instance appellant failed to do this properly. His proffered testimony was not directed at a pertinent trait of his character, as required by section 90.404(l)(a), Florida Statutes (1979), but was instead directed to app…
-
Eubanks v. State, 179 So. 2d 256 (Fla. 1st DCA 1965)…ogatory about the defendant even though they had known him for many years and lived in the same community with him. It was clearly error to strike the testimony of these witnesses. See Hinson v. State, 59 Fla. 20, 52 So. 194; also Herring v. State, 114 Fla. 156, 154 So. 187. At the trial the State vigorously opposed the introduction of the testimony of these three witnesses, yet now contends that the error was harmless. The State presented two eye witnesses to the homicide — Larry Davis, aged 12 years, a…
-
Hoffman v. State, 953 So. 2d 643 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007)…tnesses here, and who has never heard it questioned, may testify to the good reputation of such person. Such a witness may testify to good reputation by saying that he has never heard anything said against the person. Id. See also Herring v. State, 114 Fla. 156, 154 So. 187 (Fla.1934); Eubanks v. State, 179 So. 2d 256, 257 (Fla. 1st DCA 1965)(court erred in striking testimony of character witnesses where the witnesses’ opinion as to defendant’s reputation was [*646] based upon the fact that they had never…
Authorities Cited
- Hinson v. State, 59 Fla. 20 (Fla. 1910)