Hasenfuss v. State

Decision Date22 February 1901
PartiesHASENFUSS v. STATE.
CourtIndiana Supreme Court

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Appeal from circuit court, Allen county; E. O'Rourke, Judge.

Mattie E. Hasenfuss was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, and she appeals. Affirmed.H. G. Colerick and Barett & Morris, for appellant. E. V. Emrick, N. D. Doughman, and W. L. Taylor, Atty. Gen., for the State.

JORDAN, J.

Appellant was charged by indictment with having committed the crime of murder in the first degree by killing one Carl Westenfield, by the means of the administration of arsenical poison. On her plea of not guilty she was tried by a jury, and the latter, by their verdict, found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter, and further found, in accordance with the indeterminate sentence statute, that she was a woman of the age of 48 years. Some four days after the return of this verdict and the discharge of the jury, appellant moved the court to discharge her for the following reasons: First, that the verdict embraced a crime neither charged by the indictment nor within the purview of its allegations; second, because the verdict, in legal effect, acquits the defendant of the offense of murder, charged in the indictment; and, third, that under the indictment the defendant could be found guilty only of murder in the first or second degree, or not guilty of either offense. This motion was denied, and the court adjudged upon the verdict that appellant be imprisoned for an indeterminate period of from 2 to 21 years. She appeals, and assigns errors upon the rulings of the court in denying the motion for her discharge and in rendering judgment upon the verdict. The contentions of her learned counsel are that, under the indictment in this case, she must be convicted of either murder in the first or second degree or acquitted. It is insisted that voluntary manslaughter is not included in the crime of murder as charged in the indictment; hence there could be no verdict returned finding her guilty of manslaughter, and that the verdict, in effect, is a finding of not guilty as to either of the degrees of murder. The insistence is further advanced that as the crime of voluntary manslaughter, under section 1981, Burns' Rev. St. 1894 (section 1908, Horner's Rev. St. 1897), is defined to be the unlawful killing voluntarily of a human being, without malice, express or implied, upon a sudden heat, therefore there can be no case or circumstance imagined which would render it possible to reduce the crime of murder perpetrated by the means of the administration of poison to that of voluntary manslaughter. It is contended that the charge of murder in the first degree by administering poison to a human being cannot, in any sense, include the offense of voluntary manslaughter, because it cannot, in reason, be asserted that the poison was administered to the deceased upon a sudden heat. It is urged that, so far as the verdict in this case purports to convict the appellant of the crime of manslaughter, it is repugnant to the charge presented by the indictment, and is no more within the issues of the case than had the jury found appellant guilty of the crime of burglary. In that event, it is argued, had the jury been discharged without the consent of the accused, such discharge would have operated as an acquittal, as she could not again be placed in jeopardy. We are confronted with the insistence of the attorney general that, even though the contentions of appellant's counsel be true, still the motion for her discharge was properly denied, because it was not seasonably made; that is, at the time the verdict was returned and before the discharge of the jury. We pass this feature of the case, however, without consideration, preferring, as we do, to decide the question involved upon its merits.

Counsel for appellant concede that if the offense of murder in the first degree, as charged in this case, can be said to include voluntary manslaughter, then the verdict cannot be assailed under the procedure employed herein, and appellant must fail in her appeal. The question presented for our consideration is, was the jury, upon a charge of murder in the first degree perpetrated by means of administering poison, empowered to find the accused guilty of voluntary manslaughter, and could the court, upon such a verdict, impose the punishment prescribed by the statute for that offense?

The crime of murder in the first degree, as defined by section 1977, Burns' Rev. St. 1894 (section 1904, Horner's Rev. St. 1897), may be paraphrased as follows: First, where a person purposely, and with premeditated malice, kills a human being; second, where a person, either in the perpetration of, or in the attempt to perpetrate, any rape, arson, robbery, or burglary, kills a human being; third, where one by the administration of poison, or by causing the same to be administered, purposely, and with premeditated malice, kills a human being. In either case the person so offending is by the statute declared to be guilty of murder in the first degree, the penalty of which is death or imprisonment in the state prison during life. The crime of manslaughter, as defined by section 1981, Burns' Rev. St. 1894 (section 1908, Horner's Rev. St. 1897), is committed where one without malice, express or implied, unlawfully kills a human being, either voluntarily, upon a sudden heat, or involuntarily, but in the commission of some unlawful act. In short, to constitute voluntary manslaughter, under the statute, the unlawful killing must be intentional, upon a sudden heat, without malice, express or implied. Brown v. State, 110 Ind. 486, 11 N. E. 447, and cases cited; Pigg v. State, 145 Ind. 560, 43 N. E. 309.

Judge Gillett, in his work on Criminal Law, at page 404, in treating of the crime of manslaughter, says: “Voluntary manslaughter possesses the common element of murder in both its degrees,-the intention to kill,-but it is distinguished from these crimes by an absence of malice, and, of course premeditation. The statute might be thus paraphrased without doing violence to its meaning. Voluntary manslaughter is an unlawful, intentional killing of a human being, without malice and without premeditation. Although the statute adds, ‘upon a sudden heat,’ it is only in the application of the definition to a given case that this element must be made use of; for there could be no such thing as an unlawful intentional killing without malice, unless it was done upon...

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10 cases
  • Robinson v. State, 2-1072A80
    • United States
    • Indiana Appellate Court
    • April 15, 1974
    ...the defendant guilty of voluntary manslaughter 7, we are nevertheless not authorized to reverse for that reason. In Hasenfuss v. State (1901), 156 Ind. 246, 59 N.E. 463, the defendant was charged with having committed first degree murder by poisoning the deceased. Conceding 'it may be diffi......
  • O'Conner v. State
    • United States
    • Indiana Appellate Court
    • November 29, 1978
    ...heat'. (citations omitted) McDonald at 574; See also Crickmore v. State, (1938) 213 Ind. 586, 12 N.E.2d 266, 268; Hasenfuss v. State, (1901) 156 Ind. 246, 59 N.E. 463, 466; Fleetwood v. State, (1976) Ind.App., 343 N.E.2d 812, 815; Landers v. State, (1975) Ind.App., 331 N.E.2d 770, 780; Hopk......
  • Holloway v. State
    • United States
    • Indiana Appellate Court
    • July 28, 1976
    ...(1976), Ind., 346 N.E.2d 569; Robinson v. State, supra; Crickmore v. State (1938), 213 Ind. 586, 12 N.E.2d 266; and Hasenfuss v. State (1901), 156 Ind. 246, 59 N.E. 463. We believe this apparent contradiction can be explained through examination of the peculiar relationship between 'sudden ......
  • American Food Co. v. Halstead
    • United States
    • Indiana Supreme Court
    • December 13, 1905
    ...complain of a verdict of manslaughter, because, if guilty at all, he should have been convicted of the graver offense (Hasenfuss v. State, 156 Ind. 246, 59 N. E. 463), and it appears to us that the case in hand is within the principle of said ruling. It ought not to lie in the mouth of appe......
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