Court Opinion

ID: 9808849
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:52:30.931687+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:19:27.121845
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.,
(dissenting): The prisoner prayed the court to charge the jury that, “if they believed the evidence to be true, it would not justify a verdict of murder in the first degree.” This the court refused to do, and, such refusal being excepted to, raises the only exception in the record. It does not appear that the entire charge was sent up, and it is to be' presumed, under the former rulings of this Court, that only so much of the charge was sent up as was neces-*1128sai-y to point that exception. The charge as sent np bears out this view, as it shows that the judge submitted the case to the jury in the three aspects of murder in the first and second degree and manslaughter — there being no evidence of self-defense — and he sends up that part of the charge as to what constitutes murder in the first degree in full, (it not being necessary to send up the full charge as to murder in the second degree or manslaughter). The charge as to murder in the first degree is not excepted to, and indeed presents no just ground for exception.
The only exception being that the judge should not have submitted the aspect of murder in the first degree to the jury, if there was any evidence on that aspect of the case sufficient to be presented to the jury, when taken most strongly against the prisoner, the judgment below should be sustained.
The evidence was that the prisoner and his wife were in a boat; that she was screaming and he was beating her with something which sounded like beating with a fishing pole; that he was heard to say to her, “ If you don’t hush I will take something and kill you.” Two other witnesses heard the prisoner say he'“ would knock her in the head.” “Directly after that, a heavy lick was heard, then two añore heavy licks, then the prisoner stooped, picked his wife up and threw her overboard, then looked around a minute or so, unloosed his boat and came down where ” the witnesses were. He said to them that his wife had fallen overboard. When asked if he had killed her he said, “ No, he had not put his hands on her and denied having beaten her.” Another witness testified that when he first passed the prisoner and his wife, apparently before he commenced beating her, the prisoner said he would knock her in the head. The post-mortem examination showed that the wife’s neck was broken, and that her death had instantaneously *1129resulted therefrom. It would seem that surely this was evidence sufficient to go to the jury on the charge of murder iu t'he first degree. The man declares he will knock his wife in the head ; he then begins beating her with a fishing pole; he threatens if she does not hush he will kill her, and that he will knock her in the head; then three heavy blows are heard, possibly with the paddle; at any rate the woman’s neck is broken ; the husband throws her body overboard, denies having done so, and even having beaten her, and when the body is found it is shown that the violence used on the woman was sufficient to break her neck. Here there are repeated threats to kill, a killing with some heavy and deadly instrument, and a subsequent concealment. Surely this was evidence sufficient to go to thejury of murder in the first degree. • And the sole matter complained of by the appellant is that the judge left that aspect of the case to thejury.
It may be that the evidence as a whole would be suffi•cient with some persons to mitigate the aspect of the crime to a lesser offence. It may be urged that it was a palliation if the prisoner killed his wife because she was arguing with him. If this could be true, still, whether that was the "cause of the killing was a matter of fact for thejury. It may be also that the threats used by the prisoner, and his brutal conduct in a person of his condition, did not mean as much as such words and conduct by others. But the jury, not the court, are to pass upon that. It is the province of the jury alone to draw such inference of fact. There is no technical construction to be placed npon such words or conduct, if used by people in a certain condition of life, which makes their meaning .a matter of law to be determined by the court below, and therefore subject to be reviewed here, for we cannot review or weigh the evidence. Our province is simply to *1130correct errors of law. There being threats to kill, no provocation shown, a cruel beating, then heavy blows, a killing by violence sufficient to break the victim’s neck, a concealment and denial of the crime, and all this by a man upon his wife, presumably his inferior in strength, whether all these amounted to murder in the first degree, in the second degree, or manslaughter, was eminently a matter for the jury to determine. To have refused to submit the phase oí murder in the first degree would have been a grave invasion of the province of the jury. The jury have said, by a unanimous verdict, that there was no reasonable doubt, upon the evidence, of the prisoner having been guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree. The presiding judge, who also heard the evidence as well as the jury, and who, like the jury, had the benefit of the bearing of the witnesses, and hence a far better opportunity to form a correct idea of the truth of the transaction than this Court, reading the testimony on paper, possibly could have, refused to set the verdict aside. We cannot, without essaying to weigh the evidence, declare that the verdict upon the evidence was wrong, or that the judge erred in his discretion in refusing to set the verdict aside. Our province is limited by the record to the consideration of the single question whether there was any evidence of murder in the first degree to go to the jury, and there our duty and our legitimate power end. A man who brutally bills his wife is not such a favorite of the law that we should presume, contrary to all precedent, that error was committed by the court below in a matter not clearly appearing on the record and not complained of by the prisoner or his counsel by any exception.
MONTGOMERY, J.: I concur in the dissenting opi ion.