Bratton v. State

• Decision Date: 31 December 1849
• Parties: BRATTON v. THE STATE.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

29 Tenn. 103

BRATTON

v.THE STATE.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

December Term, 1849.

Bratton was indicted for murder, in the circuit court of Giles, and was tried by Judge Dillahunty and a jury, found guilty of murder in the first degree, and judgment entered accordingly. He appealed.

Nicholson and Jones, for the plaintiff in error; Attorney-General and Wright, for the State.

MCKINNEY, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff in error was indicted in the circuit court of Giles county, for the murder of Mary Jane Wilsford, and was found guilty, by the jury, of murder in the first degree, as charged in the indictment. The jury also found that there were mitigating circumstances in the case. The prisoner moved the court for a new trial, but the motion was overruled, and judgment pronounced, that he undergo confinement in the jail and penitentiary house of this State, for and during the period of his natural life. A bill of exceptions, setting forth the proof in the case, was signed and sealed, and an appeal in error prosecuted to this court.

Upon a careful consideration of the proof, we feel constrained to say, that the facts of the case, as presented in the record before us, furnish no sufficient ground, in our judgment, for disturbing the verdict of the jury. It, therefore, only remains to inquire, whether or not the legal principles applicable to the facts of the case, were correctly stated to the jury, in the charge of the court.

The deceased was the wife of the prosecutor, and her death was caused by a pistol shot, discharged by the prisoner. It seems to have been a question, earnestly discussed on the trial in the circuit court, as well as in the agrument here, whether the shot, which resulted in the death of Mrs. Wilsford, was intended by the prisoner to take effect upon her, or the prosecutor. In reference to this question, the judge instructed the jury that, “if the defendant intended to kill the husband of the deceased, and undesignedly killed the deceased, the offense would be the same as if he had killed her husband; that is, if the defendant had killed the husband of the deceased, and such killing would have been excusable homicide in self-defense, as already explained to you, then you should acquit the defendant; and so, if he had killed the husband of the deceased under such circumstances, as would make the offense manslaughter, or murder in the first or second degree, as already explained to you; then, though he undesignedly killed the deceased, it would be the same offense as if he had killed the husband of the deceased, and you should fix the punishment of the defendant accordingly.”

The only question presented upon the record is, whether the principle announced in the foregoing instruction, is applicable to the crime of murder in the first degree, as defined in the third section of the penal code of 1829. That this principle is correct, in reference to murder, at the common law, is conceded, and that it is equally so, as respects murder in the second degree, and all the inferior grades of homicide, under the statute, is not to be questioned. But that it is wholly inapplicable and directly opposed to both the letter and spirit of the statute, as regards murder in the first, we think is clear beyond all doubt.

In order to a correct determination of this question, we are to inquire, what was the intention of the legislature? What change of the existing law, upon the subject, was contemplated by the statute? What particular evil was designed to be obviated, or, at least, alleviated? The common law, which was in force here, prior to the statute of 1829, recognized no distinction in respect to felonious homicide, except that between murder and manslaughter, the distinctive difference between which two offenses is, that malice aforethought, either express or implied, which is of the essence of murder, is presumed to be wanting in manslaughter; the act, in the latter offense, being rather imputed to the infirmity of human nature. In regard to the latter crime, a distinction, certain reasonable and just itself, was also taken between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. But in relation to the higher crime of murder, the common law made no discrimination; all murders, irrespective of their greater or less malignity and atrocity, were, so far, at least, as respects the punishments, on the same footing. And, without regard to the intrinsic nature of the case, or circumstances tending to enhance or extenuate its legal, as well as moral guilt, the uniform and indiscriminate punishment was death.

Whit a discrimination more conformable to the dictates of reason, justice and humanity, as well as to the spirit of the age, the penal code of 1829, had in view, among other objects, the admeasurement and adaptation of punishment to the different degrees of crime, according to their different degrees of malignity, as far as comported with the public safety and policy. In the accomplishment of this purpose, the crime of murder (the definition of which, contained in the second section of the statute, is borrowed in exact terms from the common law), is divided into two grades, with a view solely to the graduation of the punishment. The third section exacts that “all murder which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious and premeditated killing; or which shall be committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate any arson, rape, robbery, burglary, or...