The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-01-23
Tho Court Of Appeals on tho Car
Hook Murder.

Public security and the protection of life
against unbridled passion have received most
valuable service in the decision of the Court
of Appeals denying new trial to Foster, the
car-hook murderer. Counsel for the prisoner
on his trial asked the Court to charge the Jury
that upon the indictment and evidence the
prisoner could be convicted of murder in the
second degree. The Court decided that such
conviction was not warranted by the evidence,
and so instructed the jury. Under the Re
vised Statutes one definition of the crime of
murder was "the killing of a human being
without authority of law, when perpetrated
without any design to effect death, by a per-
son engaged in the commission of any felony"
By the amendment Of 1862 all cases embraced
in this definition, except where the first de-
gree of arson was intended were made muir
der in the second degree Counsel urged that
the jury might fnd rs o matter of fact, that
Foster in striking Putnam upon the head
with an iron bar-a blow which crushed the
skull and caused death-only. intended to
commit the felony of mayhem, or manning,
and therefore the case would come under
the definition of murder in the sec
ond degree by the amendment of 1862.
Judge Andrews, in delivering the decision of
the Court of Appeals, shows that breaking the
skull is not such bc Oily harm as is defined by
our or the English statutes as mayhem. This
decision is sustained by copious citations from
reported cases. A judgment as to the inten-
ton of the culpnt could only be formed from
his acts. Every person is properly judged to
intend the natural result of what he does
Death ensued, and was likely to ensue, from
Fosters well-aimed, powerful blow. While it
was proper for the jury to determine with
what intent the blow was delivered, no man
can, without doing violence to common sense,
say that Putnams assailanf intended to frac-
ture his skull without killing him. Had the
blow been aimed at the arm and accidentally
DETECTED so as to fall upon the head and crush
it an intention to MAIN might perhaps be in
ferred. No such intention could by posi-
bility be inferred from the proved facts. The
verdict Of the jury in effectfnds that Foster
aimed his blow at vital part, using weapon
capable Of inficting a mortal wound, with
such force as would naturally produce death.
Wilful murder or murder in the first degree
is the statute definition of such an act.
All the exceptions of counsel to the
rulings and charging of the Court were over
ruled by the Court of Appeals, which fully
sustained the decision of the Court below.
Under this decision murder remains murder,
though it be not committed with an instru-
ment specially named in the statute I; and the
man who Stays his fellow by on unusual or
chance weapon must expiate his crime equally
with the ordinary culprit who kills his
man with the fashionable revolver or the
eflicacious butcher knife. In the forciblo
language of the decision, "while no errors
are trivial in the judgment involving life, it is
TO be remembered that the law of murder is
designed for the protection of life from lawess
violence" If our local Courts and prosecuting