The State v. Phillips
| Decision Date | 27 June 1893 |
| Citation | 22 S.W. 1079,117 Mo. 389 |
| Parties | The State v. Phillips, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from the Barry Circuit Court. -- Hon. Joseph Cravens, Judge.
Affirmed.
Piper Wear & Plummer for appellant.
R. F Walker, Attorney General, and Morton Jourdan, assistant for the state.
(1) The instructions covered the whole case and properly declared the law. (2) No reversible error was committed by the prosecuting attorney in his argument to the jury. (3) The objections to the juror, Johnson, were not made in time nor were the objections to him properly saved. State v. Brewer, 109 Mo. 652. (4) The court properly admitted the threats of Brown, the associate of the defendant in the crime. State v. Glahn, 97 Mo. 679; State v. Grant, 79 Mo 113; State v. Dickson, 79 Mo. 438; State v. McNally, 87 Mo. 644.
-- The defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree and her punishment assessed at ten years imprisonment in the penitentiary, and she appeals.
The indictment upon which this conviction was had charged that Caleb Brown and Celia A. Phillips did, "on purpose and of their malice aforethought, willfully, deliberately, premediately shoot and kill one Wm. H. Phillips"; the second count, "that Caleb Brown did, on purpose and of his malice aforethought, willfully, deliberately, premediately shoot and kill said W. H. Phillips," and "that Celia A. Phillips then and there feloniously, willfully, deliberately, premeditatedly and of her malice aforethought was present, aiding, helping, abetting, assisting, comforting and maintaining said Caleb Brown in the felony and murder."
The parties charged were separately arraigned and tried, and it seems Brown, being first tried, was convicted of murder in the second degree and his punishment also assessed at ten years' imprisonment in the penitentiary.
The defendant was, or had been, a married woman and had several children. About a month prior to the homicide, Brown came there and domesticated himself on the premises; made himself at home. Deceased used to enjoy similar favors, and these, it seems, were foreclosed by the advent of Brown, and this it appears was the cause of hostilities between the parties, as, since Brown's coming, defendant had refused to live with deceased any more.
It is disclosed in evidence that the reputations of Brown, of defendant, and Phillips, the deceased, were bad. Hard feeling existed between Phillips and Brown and Phillips and defendant. Brown had made threats against Phillips, and vice versa, and Phillips had threatened, and made threats against, defendant.
On the previous day, Brown had ordered John Phillips, a son of deceased, to stop passing on the road by the house. The next morning, the twelfth of March, the son having occasion to go to the town of Golden to have some bolts repaired, and, mindful of the order given him the day before by Brown, took his shot gun along with him to town. Arrived there he found his father, who had gone there at an earlier hour in the day.
Phillips and his son, in the afternoon, proceeded homeward, their home being some two and a half miles from Golden, and a short distance beyond that of defendant. Their route lay past the house of defendant. The father, it seems, was considerably under the influence of liquor. The evidence discloses that Brown and defendant in the afternoon of that day went out to a little clearing close by the house ostensibly to cut and burn brush; but each of them was armed with a shot gun and they evidently anticipated trouble.
When Phillips and his son came in sight of Brown and defendant, Brown lit a match and applied it to the leaves of a brush pile close by the road, and defendant threw on a handful of brush. When Brown and defendant saw Phillips and his son coming, they picked up their guns, which were leaning against a small sapling a few feet distant, and defendant then got in the road behind Phillips and his son, crossed it, and then walked in ahead of them and took position behind a tree with her gun to her shoulder, and pointed in the direction of the son.
Meanwhile Brown had said something to Phillips which it would seem that neither he nor his son understood, for the former turned his horse around and asked, "what?" and started towards Brown, saying that "he did not want to have any trouble, that there was no use of having any trouble;" but when he got about even to where Brown was standing with his shot gun in both hands, the latter fired, instantly killing Phillips, who fell in the road, and his pistol was found in the road a few minutes afterwards close to the body of deceased; but the son had not seen the pistol until that time. The son, Jno. Phillips, at that time had his gun across his saddle in the usual way, and when defendant took her position and deceased rode towards Brown, defendant pointed her gun at the son, and told him if he touched his gun she would kill him. This is the story as told by the son of deceased.
That told by defendant is quite different. She testified that knowing the threats made to and against her by Phillips, and...
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