Brown v. The State

• Decision Date: 30 March 1886
• Docket Number: 12,852
• Citation: 5 N.E. 900,105 Ind. 385
• Parties: Brown v. The State
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

5 N.E. 900

105 Ind. 385

Brown v. The State

No. 12,852

Supreme Court of Indiana

March 30, 1886

Petition for a Rehearing Overruled May 15, 1886.

From the Madison Circuit Court.

The judgment is affirmed, with costs.

M. S Robinson and J. W. Lovett, for appellant.

D. W Wood, Prosecuting Attorney, W. R. Pierse and C. B. Gerard for the State.

OPINION

Mitchell, J.

At the June term, 1885, the grand jury of Madison county, by a formal indictment in two counts, made presentment to the circuit court, that, on the 24th day of April, 1885, Luther F. Brown had feloniously and with premeditated malice murdered Eli F. Cummins.

In the first count, it was charged that the mortal wound had been inflicted with a knife. In the second, the charge was that the killing was by the use of a stone.

The accused, having pleaded not guilty, was tried by a jury. He was found guilty as charged, of murder in the first degree, and his punishment fixed at imprisonment for life. Over a motion for a new trial, judgment was rendered upon the verdict.

To reverse this judgment the record is brought here on appeal, with an assignment that the court erred in overruling the motion for a new trial. The evidence is voluminous and is set out in the record.

It appears that the deceased and the accused were young men residing in the same neighborhood. Some time prior to the homicide, the accused had been accustomed to call upon and was in apparent favor with a Miss Ayleshire, the daughter of a neighboring farmer. At the time of the homicide, and for some months before, the deceased had seemingly obtained the greater favor with the young lady, and the visits of the accused had from some cause been discontinued. The evidence tends to show that some ill feeling had been engendered between the two young men. On the night of April 24th, 1885, the young lady had invited some of her friends to an entertainment at her father's house. The deceased was present, with others, by her invitation. The accused came, as he asserts, upon the invitation of the deceased. Both were members of a string band, and the claim of the accused is, that he was invited to be present to assist in furnishing music for the occasion. For some reason his presence was distasteful to Miss Ayleshire, and she so intimated to him soon after his arrival. Upon this intimation he quietly withdrew from the house, but remained in the yard between the house and barn in company with a half brother. There is evidence tending to show that while he and his relative were in the yard, probably an hour after he withdrew from the house, word was brought to the father of the young lady that the accused was making threats of violence against the deceased. The evidence, on behalf of the State, tends to show that Mr. Ayleshire thereupon went out and admonished him to leave his premises and go home, saying to him that there must be no disturbance at his house, and that that was no place to settle disputes.

The testimony of the accused is to the effect that Mr. Ayleshire invited him back into the house. Soon after this interview, in some manner not fully disclosed in the evidence, the deceased and accused met at or near the door of Mr. Ayleshire's house. An altercation and scuffle of brief duration ensued. The accused was overmatched, and with his relative again retired from the scene to a shed or barn near by and adjacent to a path or highway leading from the house.

Here he remained until the fatal encounter occurred.

The State's evidence tends to support its claim, that the purpose of the accused, in going to and remaining under the shed by the public highway, was to lie in wait for and intercept the deceased, so as to re-engage him in the contest or controversy on his way home.

The claim of the defence is, that the purpose was to take shelter from a slight rain storm which came on, and prevailed a part of the time during which he remained there, and to wait for friends, who were going his way home. Before going to the shed, and after the first altercation, the accused, upon the pretext that he wished to use it about his work the next day, borrowed a pocket-knife of his relative, which he kept in his possession while he remained under the shed. The entertainment progressed, without interruption, until about 12 o'clock, when the guests separated to go to their respective homes. The way of the deceased lay by the shed under which the accused had for some purpose taken shelter. Others passed the same way slightly in advance of the deceased. When opposite, or a short distance beyond the shed, the evidence tends to show that the deceased was accosted by the accused with a reference to the cause of the previous altercation, which involved a question of veracity between them. Angry words ensued. Epithets were exchanged. A fight was proposed. The deceased put down his violin and the box in which it was contained, and went a short distance in the direction of the accused, then turning away, with the statement that he would "not fight any man who fought with a knife," took up his box and violin and started on his way homeward.

There was evidence tending to show that after proceeding about fifteen feet, the deceased turned his head partially round to look in the direction of the accused, when he was struck on the forehead, about one inch above the left eyebrow, with a missile thrown by the accused. He was seen to stagger and throw his hands up to his head, going in the direction of the barn. The accused met him, and, as the witnesses describe, the two "clinched" and "struggled" with each other. The deceased threw the accused, and seemed to try to stamp upon him, without success. The accused got up and they "clinched" and "struggled" again, when both seemed to fall, the accused on top. Thus the contest ended.

Discovering that the deceased was seriously hurt, and unable to walk, the bystanders carried him back to the house from which he had departed a few minutes before, where he died in two or three minutes afterwards. The accused sustained no injury to speak of. Six wounds were found upon the person of the deceased, two of which were mortal. One was produced by a blow on the forehead with a missile which fractured the skull, another with a knife which penetrated his left side or breast, in the vicinity of the heart.

The accused admits in his testimony that he threw at and hit the deceased with a stone, and that he cut him with a knife. That he killed him is not disputed. The claim is that it was done in self-defence. It is argued that at most the offence did not rise to either degree of murder.

Without entering upon a discussion of the evidence, of which the foregoing statement presents only very briefly an outline of some of the most salient points, we can not concur in the view so elaborately presented. An examination of the evidence has led to the conviction that it not only tends to support the verdict, but that a verdict of murder in one or the other degree must have resulted, unless every account of the fatal tragedy, and the circumstances which led up to it, except that given by the defendant himself, was discredited and disbelieved; indeed, the...