Case Name: State vs. Montylaoo A. Cole
Court: Delaware Court of Oyer and Terminer
Jurisdiction: Delaware
Decision Date: 1899-11-25
Citations: 2 Penne. 344
Docket Number: 
Parties: State vs. Montylaoo A. Cole.
Judges: 
Reporter: Delaware Reports
Volume: 18
Pages: 344–354

Head Matter:
State vs. Montylaoo A. Cole.
Criminal Law—Juror—Murder—Manslaughter—Malice—Insanity —Reasonable Doubt—Evidence.
1. A juror is not disqualified on account of having said to counsel for the prisoner just before being called, that he had better not take him on the jury, if he did not want his client convicted, or words to that effect.
2. Murder of the first degree, and murder of the second degree, defined— Manslaughter defined—Malice defined.
3. Every man is presumed to contemplate and intend the ordinary and natural consequences of his own acts.
4. In a case where the defense is insanity, in order to exempt a person from responsibility for a criminal act, the controlling power of the insanity, whether arising from delusion or from real cause, must be so intense and overwhelming as utterly to deprive the party of his reason at the time, and in regard to the act charged as criminal. If he had sufficient capacity at the time to distinguish between the right and wrong of the particular act; if he had sufficient capacity to know that that act was wrong, and the power to choose whether he would do it or not, he is responsible for it, and for all its fatal consequences.
5. Every man is presumed to be sane, and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his crime, until the contrary be proved to the satisfaction of the jury.
6. Insanity being matter of defense, the burden of showing it lies on the prisoner. It must be proved as any other fact to the satisfaction of the jury. Exhibitions of mere eccentricity of mind, manner or conduct will not excuse him; and insanity should not be confused with drunkenness, anger, wrath or revenge.
7. If the jury should be satisfied from the evidence that the prisoner, at the time he gave the mortal wound, was laboring under such a disease of the mind as to render him for the time being incapable of distinguishing between the right and the wrong of that act, or without the power to choose whether or not he would do the act. they should acquit him on the ground of insanity, and should so return their verdict, But if satisfied that he was then capable of so distinguishing, and had the power of so choosing, they may, if the evidence shall so warrant, find the prisoner guilty of murder of the first degree, or of murder of the second degree, or of manslaughter.
(November 23-25, 1899.)
Lobe, C. J., and Spbttance and Getjbb, J. J., sitting.
Robert C. White, Attorney-General, and Peter L. Cooper, Jr., Deputy Attorney-General, for the State.
Sylvester JD. Townsend and Walter U. Hayes for defendant.
Court of Oyer and Terminer, New Castle County,
-beginning November 25, 1899.
The defendant, Montyiaoo A. Cole, was indicted by the grand jury in September, 1899, and the case was postponed to November, on account of the absence of a material witness for the defense.
The prisoner was charged with murder of the first degree of William A. Montague, of Wyoming, Delaware, on May 17, 1899, on East Second Street in the City of Wilmington. The testimony showed that Cole, who was a student in the dental department of the University of Pennsylvania, had been very intimate with a young girl named Edna Wilson. She came to Wilmington early in 1899 and stopped at a disreputable house, No. 227 Orange Street, where she met Montague; that Cole came to Wilmington two days before Montague was killed, and in company with Montague and Edna Wilson visited the Western Hotel; and that they all three spent the night at 227 Orange Street, Cole leaving early the next morning for Philadelphia, for the purpose of resuming his studies at the University of Pennsylvania; that Cole and Montague shook hands before Cole left and parted friends; that two days later Cole came back to Wilmington with a fellow student, bringing a baseball bat with them from Philadelphia; that they went to the Western Hotel and that Cole, inquired of the clerk if Montague and the girl, Edna Wilson, had been in there that evening. Being informed that they had not, on leaving the hotel he remarked, “ We will get the son of. a bitch (or the sucker) before we leave town.” Cole and his friend next appeared at 227 Orange Street, where Cole, in the presence of several witnesses, swung the baseball bat around his head and said he “ would cover the bat with gray matter and gore; that he would decorate the bat, that the bat would either kill him or somebody else before he left town;” and also remarked while flourishing a knife, the point of which he stuck in the table and broke off, “ that he would dig Edna Wilson’s heart out.” That at the suggestion of some of those present, Cole? accompanied by William A. Moore, with some other young men preceding them, left the house, and while passing along Second street near King, met Montague and the girl; that Cole asked the girl what she was doing there, and without another word, struck Montague alongside of the head with the baseball bat, which he had brought with him from the house, felling him to the street; that Montague, while lying in the gutter was struck by Cole twice more upon the head, and that the latter then ran away but was overtaken and arrested at Front and French streets by the police officer. Montague was taken to the Delaware Hospital the same night and died there a week later.
The defense was based on insanity. It was proved that Cole’s father was insane at the time of his death, and had been insane for many years before his death, and had had a prior attack of insanity in the early part of the sixties, and antedating the birth of the prisoner, Cole, who was born in 1875. It was also proved that Cole’s maternal grandmother and two maternal uncles were crazy. Several witnesses from Philadelphia testified that Cole had been studying very hard prior to May 17th, in order to be up with his examinations, and that he acted like a crazy man a few days before the tragedy, and also on the day it happened. The State proved in rebuttal by various witnesses who were with Cole at the time Montague was killed, and immediately prior thereto, that in their judgment he was not insane at the time.
During the selection of the jury, Edwin C. Clark was called, and having been sworn on his voidire, Mr. Mayes asked the following question for the purpose of laying ground for challenge for cause:
Q. Did you this morning out in the hall here say to Mr. Sylvester D. Townsend that he had better not take you on this jury if he did not want Cole convicted, or words to that effect ?
A. I asked him to challenge me.
Q. Did you say words to that effect ?
A. I do not know; something that way. I simply asked him to challenge me. That is what I meant for him to do. I do not think I put the “convicted” in.
By Mr. Cooper:
Q,. Have you not said to me once or twice, in a joking way, that the State had better not take you on the case ?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was that the same way in which you spoke to Mr-Townsend ?
A. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hayes:—I think the witness has absolutely disqualified himself.

Opinion:
Lore, C. J.:
The majority of the Court think that this is not a disqualification. If it be so, then every juror who did not want to sit upon a case could intimate in some way or other that you had better not take him, and we would never get these cases tried, as it is an exceedingly unpleasant thing to sit in judgment upon a human life.