Case Name: George Vaughan v. The State of Mississippi
Court: High Court of Errors and Appeals of Mississippi
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1844-11
Citations: 3 S. & M. 553
Docket Number: 
Parties: George Vaughan v. The State of Mississippi.
Judges: 
Reporter: Mississippi Reports
Volume: 11
Pages: 553–555

Head Matter:
NOVEMBER TERM, 1844.
George Vaughan v. The State of Mississippi.
When a bill of exceptions is certified by an inferior Court to contain all the evidence adduced upon the trial, it is to that alone this Court can look for the evidence.
In criminal prosecutions the offence must be proved to have been committed in the county as charged in the indictment, in order to bring it within the jurisdiction of the Court.
When an indictment charges a shooting witij a felonious intent, it must be proved that the gun was so loaded as to be capable of doing the mischief alleged to be intended.
In error to the Circuit Court of Lowndes county.
This was an indictment, found by the grand jury of Lowndes county, against Géorge Vaughan, for shooting at, with the intent to kill and murder Henry R. Owen. The weapon alleged to have been used was a shot-gun, loaded with gunpowder and divers leaden shot. The defendant pleaded not guilty. The evidence is substantially recited in the opinion of the Court. The jury found a verdict of guilty, and the defendant entered a motion in arrest of judgment. The Court overruled his motion, and he has brought the case to this Court by writ of error.
Win. Yerger, for plaintiff in error.
The record presents four distinct grounds of reversal : —
1. No prosecutor was marked on the bill of indictment. This is made necessary by statute, and not having been done, the judgment is erroneous. How. & Hutch. 669 ; 3 How. Rep. 27.
2. The record does not show that the grand jury acted upon and returned as “a true bill ” the indictment on which the prisoner was tried and convicted ; this is necessary. The record only shows that “ a true bill ” for an'“ assault, with intent to kill,” was found against defendant; while he was tried on an indictment for an “ assault, with intent to kill and murder,” which are very different offences. Hite v. State, 9 Yerg. 198 ; Chappel v. State, 8 Yerg. 166 ; 1 Chitty, C. L. 266.
3. There was no venue proved on the trial, which is essential to a conviction. 6 Yerg. 364 ; 1 Chitty, Cr. Law, 176.
4. The proof on the merits made out no case of offence against the defendant, and it was error in the Court to refuse a new trial.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Thacher
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case comes into this Court by writ of error to the Circuit Court of Lowndes county.
It was an indictment under the statute for shooting with intent to kill, and, upon trial, resulted in a verdict of guilty.
We shall.notice two grounds upon which the judgment of the Court below must be reversed.
The record does not show that the offence was committed in the county of Lowndes. The bill of exceptions is certified by the Court below to contain all the evidence adduced upon the trial. It is to that alone, therefore, that we can look for the evidence. The bill of exceptions contains nothing that sufficiently meets the requirements of the law, as proof of the venue. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the offence must be proved to have been committed in the county, as charged in the indictment, in order to bring it within the jurisdiction of the Court.
Again, from the evidence, as detailed in. the bill of exceptions, serious doubts arise in our minds that the defendant below entertained felonious intentions at the time of the alleged assault. A dispute had existed between the defendant below and his neighbors, about the right of the latter to use a part of his lands as a highway for travel. Upon the day mentioned in the indictment, certain boys, returning from school, undertook this road, not without some design, as they themselves confess, to annoy the defendant below. Thej7' were pursued by the defendant, who, when at the distance of sixty yards from one of the boys, who was then getting over a fence, discharged his gun. The boy, against whom the gun is alleged to have been discharged, was uninjured; and no marks of shot could be discovered in the immediate neighborhood of the place where he was at the time. Subsequently, marks of shot were found in some bushes, and traced to a sapling, in a somewhat different direction from that which the boy had occupied, and were discovered to be small bird-shot. There was other testimony that went to prove that the bird-shot were most probably the contents of the gun which was discharged. If they were not so, there is no evidence that the gun contained anything more than a charge of powder. It has been held, in' cases decided under statutes similar to our own, that it must appear that the fire-arms were loaded so as to be capable of doing the mischief intended. If loaded with powder and wadding only, but if fired so near an individual, and in such a direction, that it would probably kill him, it would come within the statute. But it would be absurd to say that the discharging a gun, even loaded with ball, at so great a distance as could not possibly effect injury to the person against whom it was directed, évinced anúnteution to kill; and the same may be said of anything else wherewith the gun may be loaded. There was evidence before the jury, of experiments having been made with the gun used by the defendant, that went to show that at the same distance at which he stood from the boy when the gun was discharged, and with a charge of the same kind of bird-shot, the gun was incapable of taking life. Now, as a man's motives and intentions are to be inferred from the means which he uses, and the acts which he does, we are inclined to the belief that no serious damage was intended by the defendant, but that his object was rather to alarm than to injure.
The judgment of the Court below must be reversed, and a new trial awarded by the Circuit Court of Lowndes county.