EDDIE LEWIS
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA

Fla. | 1946-02-12
CHAPMAN, C. J., TERRELL, BROWN, BUFORD and ADAMS, JJ. and BARNS, Circuit Judge, concur.
157 Fla. 77 Florida Supreme Court (1946) Positive Treatment
Also reported at: 24 So. 2d 797
Cited by 2 cases

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Holding

The court held that the evidence was sufficient to establish premeditated design to kill, supporting a first-degree murder conviction.


Facts & Procedural History

The defendant confessed to killing the deceased with an axe, motivated by jealousy over a shared mistress. His trial testimony corroborated the state'…

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Opinion of the Court
SEBRING, J.:

SEBRING, J.:

Eddie Lewis, the defendant below, has appealed from a judgment finding him guilty of murder in the first degree. He assigns as error the sufficiency of the evidence to establish the element of a premediated design to kill, without which there can be no lawful conviction of murder in the first degree.

At the trial the state adduced independent proof of the corpus delicti which, together with a confession made by the defendant to the arresting officers, was sufficient to establish guilt of the crime charged if the jury saw fit to believe the evidence. When the defendant took the stand in his own behalf he not only admitted having made the confession alluded to in the state’s case, but also gave testimony which corroborated the material facts relied upon by the state to establish the crime.

The evidence is that the killing was done with an axe. The criminal act was motivated by the fact that the defendant had been supplanted in the affections of his mistress by the deceased who had moved in and taken command of the situation with marriage as the object. Angered by this turn of events the hapless defendant sought out the deceased and knocked him in the head as he lay asleep in the house of the faithless paramour.

Other questions raised on the appeal have been duly considered and are found to be without merit.

The judgment should be affirmed and it is so ordered.

CHAPMAN, C. J., TERRELL, BROWN, BUFORD and ADAMS, JJ. and BARNS, Circuit Judge, concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Brooks v. State, 64 So. 2d 914 (Fla. 1953)
    …ximated he left home and shortly after the time a night watchman testified he saw Hicks alive going down the railroad. Another witness who resided near the scene said she heard a shot which sounded like a shotgun at 9:10 o’clock. See Lewis v. State, 157 Fla. 77, 24 So. 2d 797. It was established by the state that Henry Brown was at a crab factory during all of these times and, while it was shown that appellant had a shotgun available to him and was in possession of one on the night involved, Brown’s shotg…

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