Alexander v. United States

• Citation: 34 L.Ed. 954,11 S.Ct. 350,138 U.S. 353
• Parties: ALEXANDER v. UNITED STATES
• Decision Date: 02 February 1891
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

138 U.S. 353

11 S.Ct. 350

34 L.Ed. 954

ALEXANDER v. UNITED STATES.

February 2, 1891.

A. H. Garland and Heber J. May, for plaintiff in error.

Sol. Gen. Taft, for the United States.

This was a writ of error sued out under the sixth section of the act of February 6, 1889, (25 St. 656,) to review a judgment of the circuit court of the United States for the western district of Arkansas, imposing a sentence of death upon the plaintiff in error for the murder of David C. Steadman 'at the Creek Nation in the Indian country.'

The plaintiff in error relied upon the following grounds for reversal:

(1) That the court erred in its selection of the jury, in that the defendant was required to make his challenges without first knowing what challenges the government's attorney had made, and thus challenged two jurors, to-wit, C. F. Needles and Samuel Lawrence, who were also challenged by the government, whereby he was deprived of two of his challenges contrary to law.

(2) That the court erred in excluding the testimony offered by the defendant to prove threats to kill Steadman made by House and others, while they were hunting Steadman under the belief that he had seduced the wife of the said House and was secreting himself with her in the nighborhood.

(3) Because the court erred in admitting the testimony of J. G. Ralls as to confidential communications made to him as the attorney of the defendant.

1. With regard to the first error assigned, it appears from the record that 'the court directed two lists of thirty-seven qualified jurymen to be made out by the clerk, and one given to the district attorney and one to the counsel for the defendant; and the court further directed each side to proceed with its challenges independent of the other, and without knowledge on the part of either as to what challenges had been made by the other, to which method of proceeding in that regard defendant at the time offered no objections, but proceeded to make his challenges, and in so doing challenged two jurors, to-wit, C. F. Needles and Samuel Lawrence, who had been also challenged by the government.' We do not deem it necessary to inquire whether there was error in the method pursued by the court in impaneling this jury. It appears distinctly from the bill of exceptions that the defendant offered no objection to it at the time, and made no demand to challenge any of the jury beyond the 20 allowed by Rev. St. § 819. Indeed, it does not clearly appear which side made the first challenges, or that defendant had not exhausted his challenges before the government challenged the two jurors in question. If it were a fact that the defend-

Mr. Justice BROWN, after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court ant had made his 20 challenges before the government challenged these two men, it is difficult to see how his rights were prejudiced by the action of the district attorney.

But the decisive answer to this assignment is that the attention of the court does not seem to have been called to it until after the conviction, when the defendant made it a ground of his motion for a new trial. It is the duty of counsel seasonably to call the attention of the court to any error in impaneling the jury, in admitting testimony, or in any other proceeding during the trial by which his rights are prejudiced, and in case of an adverse ruling to note an excpti on. Stoddard v. Chambers, 2 How. 284; De Sobry v. Nicholson 3 Wall. 420; Railroad Co. v. Hart, 114 U. S. 654, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1127; Thomp. Trials, §§ 690, 693, 700.

2. To understand fully the force of the second error assigned, it is necessary to state so much of the evidence as exhibits substantially the case made out by the government. The evidence tended to show that the defendant and the deceased, Steadman, had agreed to go into the stock business together, and, upon the day of the murder, were endeavoring to rent a farm for the purpose of wintering their horses, and making a crop the following year. They were returning to their camp both armed with guns. Defendant was also armed with a pistol. So far as the evidence discloses, Steadman disappeared and was never seen alive again. A few minutes after they were last seen, a witness, who had met them, saw the two horses, without riders, standing in the road near a wood. Shortly after, eight or nine shots were heard in the wood, and after this the defendant was seen upon the road, sitting upon one of the horses, and leading the other, which had no rider. In about 12 days the body of Steadman was found half a mile from the place from where he and defendant had been seen, and within 75 yards of the place where the horses were seen standing. His skull was crushed, and there was a bullet hole in it back of the ear. There was also evidence that Steadman had a large amount of money on his person at the time he disappeared. The defendant offered contradictory explanations of Steadman's disappearance. At one time said he had probably been killed, and at another time suggested suicide, and at another pretended to believe a story that had been circulated in the neighborhood that Steadman and a married woman by the name of House had disappeared and were hiding together. Evidence was admitted tending to show that Mrs. House and Steadman had been seen in conference the day before, and that the general impression in the neighborhood at the time was that they had gone off together. House and his friends had armed themselves with guns and pistols and had ridden through the country hunting for them, under the belief that they were hiding together in the neighborhood, or had fled the country together.

Now, if evidence was admitted to show that House had armed himself, and was hunting for Steadman, under the impression that the latter had eloped with his wife, and was secreting himself in that vicinity, it is difficult to see upon what principle his threats in that connection were excluded. Accepting the theory of the government that mere threats, unaccompanied by acts of a threatening nature, were irrelevant to the question of defendant's guilt, it is not easy to understand how the acts themselves could be made pertinent without testimony tending to show the reason why House had armed himself, and, with other parties, was scouring the country for Steadman. Their statements in that connection would be clearly illustrative of the act in question, and a part of the res gestae, within the rule laid down in Lord George Gordon's Case, 1 Greenl. Ev. § 108, and within all the authorities upon the subject of declarations as part of the res gestae.

At the same time we recognize a certain discretion on the part of the trial judge to rule out this entire testimony, both of the acts and the declarations of House, if, in his opinion, they were so remote or insignificant as to have no legitimate tendency to show that House could have committed the murder. If, for instance, it were clearly proven that the murder was committed before...