Court Opinion

ID: 9625228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:32:30.050952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:03.823028
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING.
*64OPINION
Blume, Chief Justice.
A petition for rehearing has been filed herein, and by doing so counsel for defendant have shown a praiseworthy effort to do all that is possible to be done for their client.
We have read the petition for rehearing and the brief that accompanies it with care. However, it covers the same ground which was covered in the original arguments, and we considered all the points involved with meticulous care in our original opinion, as may be noted by the length of it. It would subserve no good purpose to go over "them again and attempt to find additional reasons for the conclusions reached. We might, however, mention just a few matters. Counsel say that to be guilty of premeditation, defendant must have had time to deliberate. The trial court so instructed the jury. True, the jealousy of the defendant and the excitement incident thereto probably continued up to the time of the homicide. The jury had the privilege, if it chose to exercise it, to find that that fact alone should reduce the penalty. This court, as a court *65of law, has no such privilege, but is bound by the verdict of the jury, if, as a matter of fact, the defendant had time to deliberate, as the testimony shows he had. To lay down a rule that jealousy and the excitement incident thereto prevents, as a matter of law, the infliction of the penalty for first degree murder is — and we think with good reason — contrary to the decisions on the subject. 1 Warren on Homicide, Permanent Edition, p. 375, says: “Where a husband kills his wife because of jealousy, or because she is unfaithful, he is guilty or murder in the first degree.” See to the same effect State v. Burns, 148 Mo. 167, 49 S.W. 1005, 71 Am.St.Rep. 588, and note appended. The same rule should, of course, apply to the case at bar. Dr. Whalen’s testimony, when he related what defendant told him, discloses no confession of the defendant. In the main, he merely related what defendant testified on the witness stand, and in view of that fact the testimony above mentioned should have helped him with the jury instead of hurting his cause. As to the refusal or failure of the court to instruct the jury as to the rights of the pardon board, while it did not literally follow what we said in State v. Carroll, 52 Wyo. 29, 69 P.2d 542, the refusal or failure to instruct on that matter had the same effect.
The defendant is guilty of a serious crime. He killed not only one person, he killed two. That accentuates the fact that if defendant had a fair trial, as we think he had, no sentiment or sympathy on our part should permit him to escape the penalty which the law decrees. It is not he alone whom we must consider. We must consider society as well. A warning must be given that to take another’s life is dangerous to the one who takes it. We have too many killings. If capital punishment is to be abolished, that must be done by the legislature. We have no power to do so. We but follow the law, and *66must do so. It is not this court that is sending the defendant to his death. That was done by the jury, and unless we find a prejudicial error of law, as we have not found, we have no right, privilege or power to interfere with its province, centuries old as that province is.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
Harnsberger, J., and Parker, J., concur.