Beasley v. State

• Decision Date: 14 March 1887
• Citation: 64 Miss. 518,1 So. 736
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: GEORGE BEASLEY v. THE STATE

1 So. 736

64 Miss. 518

GEORGE BEASLEY v. THE STATE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 14, 1887

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Copiah County, HON. T. J. WHARTON Judge.

George Beasley was indicted and tried for the murder of one Frank Starnes.

The evidence presented by the State on the trial, which was circumstantial, tended to show that Beasley and Starnes were in the woods alone hunting when Beasley shot Starnes in the back of the head with his shotgun, and then took up the rifle which Starnes was carrying and shot him through the head with it, and that no shot was fired by Starnes. The defendant in his own behalf testified that he and Starnes were out hunting alone, and both sat down to wait for a dog that had gone off when Starnes "got up and walked off a little piece, and wanted to know of me what I had been telling those damn lies on him for. I asked him what lies. He told me that I had told Kendrick that it was him that cut off his cows' tails. I told him I didn't tell Monroe Kendrick nothing. I hadn't spoken to him. He said Mr. Kendrick had told him that. He said that we are living too close together; there was three of us then all mad at one another, and one of us had to leave, and then he throwed up his gun and shot at me and turned to run, and I shot him."

Among other instructions the court gave the following for the State:

"4. The only thing that will justify or excuse the willful and deliberate killing of a human being on the ground of self-defense is that at the very moment of the killing the party killed must be doing something really or apparently dangerous to the life or the limb of the slayer. And if the jury should believe from the evidence in this case, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Beasley shot Starnes deliberately when Starnes was running or whirling to run from Beasley, and Starnes was doing nothing at that moment really or apparently dangerous to Beasley's life or limb, then Beasley is guilty of murder, and the jury should so find, even though the jury should believe from the evidence, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Starnes had an instant before shot at and missed Beasley.

"5. If the jury should believe from the evidence in this case beyond all reasonable doubt, that Starnes shot at Beasley and ran, and that Beasley thereupon deliberately shot Starnes in the back of the head and killed him, then Beasley is guilty of murder and the jury should convict him of murder; but if the jury should believe that Starnes shot at Beasley, and that Beasley then shot Starnes in the head and killed him without any deliberation whatever, then Beasley is guilty of manslaughter; that is to say, if the jury believe from the evidence, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Beasley shot and killed Starnes as he ran away from him, either with or without deliberation, then Beasley is guilty of murder or manslaughter, and the fact that Starnes first shot at Beasley will not excuse or justify the crime."

The court gave the following instruction for the defendant:

"21. The court instructs the jury that although they may believe from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that defendant did willfully kill deceased, not in necessary self-defense yet if a reasonable doubt arises from the evidence whether the killing was pursuant to a premeditated design or from sudden heat of passion, aroused by defendant being shot at by deceased, then the jury should only find defendant guilty of manslaughter and not murder."

The jury found the defendant guilty of murder, and from the judgment against him he appealed.

Reversed and remanded.

H. C. Conn, for the appellant.

The fourth instruction for the State is a fatal error because it directly instructs the jury to find a verdict for murder upon a state of facts which would at most be manslaughter.

It would not do to say that the word deliberately cures this instruction, because "deliberately" just when it occurs does not nor would not inform the jury what was meant by it, to wit, malice aforethought. Any casual reader (not a lawyer) of this instruction would certainly lose sight of the most important element of murder, i. e., malice aforethought.

It in effect instructs the jury that, that if defendant was not justifiable on the ground of self-defense, and it had already said he was not, then he was guilty of murder, notwithstanding every word of defendant's testimony might be true.

Now I respectfully submit that this instruction, taken altogether in effect instructs the jury that even should they adopt the theory of facts claimed by the defendant, even then he was guilty of murder. This instruction undertakes to instruct the jury from defendan...