J. W. BENTON
v.
STATE
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J. W. Benton was convicted of manslaughter for a hit-and-run accident that killed Allen Cash in Jacksonville. The Florida Supreme Court reversed the conviction, finding the circumstantial evidence insufficient to support the guilty verdict beyond a reasonable doubt.
The conviction must be reversed because the circumstantial evidence was insufficient to sustain it. The court found the evidence was not only weakly consistent with the theory of Benton's guilt but also consistent with other reasonable hypotheses, failing to meet the burden of proof required for conviction.
“all of it did no more than raise a weak probability of the defendant's guilt, which, of course, is not sufficient”
Establishes that weak probability of guilt from circumstantial evidence cannot support conviction
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceOn August 22, 1934, Allen Cash, a pedestrian, was struck by an automobile in Jacksonville at night and died within hours. Bystanders reported seeing a…
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On the 22nd of August, 1934, a man named Allen Cash, a pedestrian on the streets of Jacksonville, was struck by a passing automobile and injured so seriously that he died from such injuries within a few hours. Two months later, J. W. Benton was informed against in the Criminal Court of Record for Duval County on the charge of manslaughter for having inflicted the injuries upon Cash as it was alleged. There was a trial and a verdict of .guilty as charged in the information and judgment duly entered upon the verdict. To that judgment Benton took a writ of error, from this court.
Two questions are presented: one, as to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction, and the other as to the right of the accused to amend a motion for a new trial, after the expiration of the time for filing such motion. As the judgment must be reversed upon the first assignment of error there is no necessity to discuss the second.
The accident occurred at night between eight and nine o’clock. There were some bystanders who witnessed it. The di'iver of the car which struck Cash drove on without waiting to see the extent of the injury he had inflicted, if he was aware of the accident. Persons standing near said that the car was a large' black sedan driven by a negro, and others said that it was driven by a white man. One witness said that she noticed the number of the automobile tag and wrote it down at the time and that it was D15252. At another time she said the second figure was blurred and that *208it might have been a 6. When the defendant was arrested he was taken by the officer to the station in the defendant’s automobile, -which bore a tag number D15262. There was other evidence of a semi-incriminatory nature, but all of it did no more than raise a weak probability of the defendant’s guilt, which, of course, is not sufficient. Pate v. State, 72 Fla. 97, 72 South. Rep. 517.
It would be unnecessary to discuss the evidence and the testimony of the witnesses in detail because it would avail no useful purpose. We have examined the record and are satisfied that the evidence, which was entirely circumstantial, is not only weakly consistent with the theory of the defendant’s guilt, but it is not inconsistent with any other reasonable hypothesis. See Folks v. State, 85 Fla. 238, 95 South. Rep. 619; Whetstone v. State, 31 Fla. 240, 12 South. Rep. 661; Simmons v. State, 99 Fla. 1216, 128 South. Rep. 486; Lee v. State, 96 Fla. 59, 117 South. Rep. 699; Davis v. State, 90 Fla. 816, 107 South. Rep. 245; Parish v. State, 98 Fla. 877, 124 South. Rep. 444; Cannon v. State, 91 Fla. 214, 107 South. Rep. 360; Hall v. State, 90 Fla. 719, 107 South. Rep. 246; Asher v. State, 90 Fla. 75, 105 South. Rep. 140.
Judgment reversed.
Whitfield, Terrell, Brown, Buford and Davis, J. J., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Jones v. State, 466 So. 2d 301 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985)…lottery tickets and operating a lottery reversed); Stewart v. State, 158 Fla. 753, 30 So. 2d 489 (1947) (state’s evidence deemed insufficient to link the defendant to the murder for which he was charged; murder conviction reversed); Benton v. State, 127 Fla. 206, 172 So. 858 (1937) (state’s evidence linking defendant to a hit-and-run automobile accident by way of a license tag number and other proofs deemed insufficient; manslaughter conviction reversed); Brown v. State, 126 Fla. 429, 171 So. 211 (1936) (st…
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Knight v. State, 294 So. 2d 387 (Fla. 4th DCA 1974)…yramiding allowable inferences, this evidence raises only a mere possibility of guilt, or only a wonderment that the accused was implicated. This is not sufficient to uphold a conviction. Lombardo v. State, 55 So. 2d 914 (Fla.1952); Benton v. State, 127 Fla. 206, 172 So. 858 (1937); Whitehead v. State, 273 So. 2d 146 (2d D.C.A.Fla.1973); Boswer v. State, 265 So. 2d 55 (3d D.C.A.Fla.1972). The mentioned circumstances raised a suspicion, but it can not be said that the evidence established defendant’s guilt b…
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Christ LaMONTE v. State, 145 So. 2d 889 (Fla. 2d DCA 1962)…t this error injuriously affected the substantial rights of the defendant. The judgment is reversed. ' Reversed. ALLEN, Acting C. J., and KANNER, J., concur. . For similar evidence held by our courts to be insufficient, see Benton v. State, 1937, 127 Fla. 206, 172 So. 858; Head v. State, Fla.1952, 62 So. 2d 41; and Williams v. State, Fla.1962, 143 So. 2d 484.…
Authorities Cited (11 total)
- Cannon v. State, 107 So. 360 (Fla. 1926)
- Lee v. State, 96 Fla. 59 (Fla. 1928)
- Doyle Hall v. State, 90 Fla. 719 (Fla. 1925)
- James Parish v. State, 98 Fla. 877 (Fla. 1929)
- Folks v. State, 85 Fla. 238 (Fla. 1923)
- Whetston v. State, 31 Fla. 240 (Fla. 1893)
- Davis v. State, 90 Fla. 816 (Fla. 1925)
- Pate v. State, 72 Fla. 97 (Fla. 1916)
- Simmons v. State, 99 Fla. 1216 (Fla. 1930)
- Walker v. Lavinia Willis, 72 Fla. 119 (Fla. 1916)