Com. v. Coy
| Decision Date | 20 October 1892 |
| Citation | 157 Mass. 200,32 N.E. 4 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. COY. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
A.E. Pillsbury, Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.
C.J Parkhurst and H.C. Joyner, for defendant.
The exception to the admission of the defendants's confession because it was reduced to writing by another before it was read to the defendant and signed by him was waived. By adopting the language, the defendant made it his own. Com. v. Hildreth, 11 Gray, 327.
The next exception is founded on the refusal of the court to give to the jury certain instructions requested by the defendant. These all relate to the evidence in regard to the cause of the death of the deceased person, as applied to the allegations of the indictment in that particular. There was evidence that the body when found showed a mortal wound upon the skull, apparently made by a blow with an axe, or some similar instrument. The head was nearly severed from the body, and bent back under the body. The body was substantially emptied of blood, and both legs were cut off. There was evidence that the defendant said he knocked the deceased down with an axe, and cut his throat about an hour afterwards to make sure that he was dead, and that he subsequently cut off his legs. According to the testimony he also said that the deceased "did not bleed much when he cut his throat; that he had got through bleeding; bled as much from the head as anywhere." At the trial the defendant testified that he struck the deceased "first one way, and then the other, with the axe, and deceased fell on the floor; that he lifted him up, and put him on the bed found that he had cut his throat considerably with one blow of the axe, and there was a bruise on his head;" that after he was dead he cut off the legs close to the body, and when he was about to bury the body he cut the neck with the axe so that he could bend the head back under the body. There was evidence from medical experts that, while the wound on the head was mortal, it would not be likely to cause death instantly, and that the blood which would flow from it would not be a very large proportion of the whole amount in the body, and that the blood would not flow after death. It was also testified that a cut in the throat severing the principal veins and arteries there would cause death by bleeding very quickly. The exception taken was to the refusal of the court to give in terms the instructions requested, and not to the instructions given. So far as the requests relate to the first and second counts of the indictment, the instructions given were sufficiently favorable to the defendant. Each of the first two counts alleges that the death was caused by a wound on the head, produced by a blow with an axe. If the wound in the throat caused the death, the defendant's testimony tended to show that it was produced by a blow from the same axe, inflicted at the same time. There is nothing to show that its size and shape differed much from the description in the indictment. This was not a variance. It is not necessary that allegations of this kind should be proved with literal accuracy. It is enough if the death is shown to have been caused in a manner or by means of the same general character as those charged. The fact that the wound which caused death was in the throat, instead of on the temple, if the jury so found, or that its size and shape were not exactly as alleged, is immaterial. It is not as if the proof showed a death by drowning when the charge was of a death by shooting. The authorities will warrant a conviction under the first or second counts on facts which the jury may have found in this case. Com. v. Woodward, 102 Mass. 155; Com. v. McAfee, 108 Mass. 458; Sanchez v. People, 22 N.Y. 147; Real v. People, 42 N.Y. 270; Bryan v. State, 19 Fla. 864; Rodgers v. State, 50 Ala. 102; State v. Fox, 25 N.J.Law, 566; State v. Hoyt, 13 Minn. 132, (Gil. 125;) State v. Lautenschlager, 22 Minn. 514; State v. Gould, 90 N.C. 658.
In regard to the requests which refer to the third count, the jury were correctly instructed. Under the twelfth article of the declaration of rights of the constitution of Massachusetts, "no subject shall be held to answer for any crime or offense until the same is fully and plainly substantially and formally, described to him." Under this provision, as well as under the rules of the common law, it is the duty of a grand jury in framing an indictment to state their charge with as much certainty as the circumstances of the case will permit. But an indictment is merely the charge or accusation of the grand jury, and, if the evidence before them points clearly to the commission of a murder by the prisoner in one or two or three modes, but leaves it doubtful in which, it is proper for them to present different counts in their indictment, stating the cause of death in different ways, so that the averments may accord with the facts as they finally appear at the trial; and if, upon the evidence before them, they are in doubt as to what was the cause of death, they may properly frame a count alleging that the death was caused in some manner to them unknown. Com. v. Webster, 5 Cush. 295. The defendant's proposition, embodied in his requests for instructions, is, in substance, that such a count cannot be availed of to cover a cause of death of which there is any evidence before the grand jury, and that every cause of which there is any suggestion in the evidence must be specially alleged in the indictment, or it will not support the indictment if proved at the trial. The authorities do not sustain this contention. Where the whole evidence goes far enough to produce in the minds of the grand jury such a conviction in regard to the mode of death as may fairly be called "knowledge,"--such that ordinary men would be willing to act upon it as true,--they are bound to allege the cause particularly in the...
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