In re Application of Heigho

• Decision Date: 01 October 1910
• Citation: 18 Idaho 566,110 P. 1029
• Parties: In the Matter of the Application of EDGAR M. HEIGHO for a Writ of Habeas Corpus
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

110 P. 1029

18 Idaho 566

In the Matter of the Application of EDGAR M. HEIGHO for a Writ of Habeas Corpus

Supreme Court of Idaho

October 1, 1910

MANSLAUGHTER-CAUSE OF DEATH-FRIGHT AND NERVOUS SHOCK.

(Syllabus by the court.)

1. Under the provisions of sec. 6565, Rev. Codes, involuntary manslaughter is defined to be "The unlawful killing of a human being in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to felony; or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death, in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection."

2. Under the statute of this state, sec. 6565, Rev. Codes, an unlawful killing, though unintentional and involuntary, if accomplished by one while engaged in the commission of an unlawful act, is manslaughter, and the statute does not circumscribe the means or agency causing the death. This statute covers and includes any and all means and mediums by or through which a death is caused by one engaged in an unlawful act.

3. Under the statute of this state, sec. 6565, Rev. Codes, a prosecution for manslaughter may be had where the death of a human being has been caused or accomplished through fright fear, terror or nervous shock produced by the accused while in the commission of an unlawful act, even though the accused made no hostile demonstration and directed no overt act at the person of the deceased. It would seem that in some instances force or violence may be applied to the mind or nervous system as effectually as to the body.

Original application for writ of habeas corpus. Writ issued and hearing had on return thereto. Writ quashed and prisoner remanded to the custody of the officer.

Writ quashed, and the prisoner remanded.

Harris & Smith, and N. M. Ruick, for Petitioner.

It is incumbent upon the state to show that there is such a relation between this act of the accused and the death of Mrs. Riegleman as to prove beyond reasonable doubt that such act was the exact cause of her death. (21 Am. & Eng. Enc. of Law, 97 (c).)

A person must be presumed to do that which he voluntarily and wilfully does in fact do, and that he intends all the natural, probable and usual consequences of his acts ( Commonwealth v. Webster, 5 Cush. 305, 52 Am. Dec 711; People v. Munn, 65 Cal. 211, 3 P. 650), but not all the possible consequences of his act. (People v. Munn supra; People v. Rockwell, 39 Mich. 503.)

Counsel, after a protracted and careful search, have failed to discover in the books a single case presenting the same precise facts as are here presented. The only cases that approach anywhere near are those cited in note 4, p. 98, 21 Am. & Eng. Enc. of Law.

J. L. Richards, Prosecuting Attorney of Washington County, B. S. Varian, and Hawley, Puckett & Hawley, for the State.

A person is responsible for a homicide in whatever manner or by whatever means the death was caused, provided it was caused by his unlawful act or omission resulting in physical or corporal injury. (21 Cyc. of Law & Prac. 694, 695, and authorities cited.)

A person may be guilty of murder or manslaughter, according to the circumstances, if by reason of fright, intentionally and unlawfully caused by him, physical or corporeal injury and death resulted. (Thornton v. State, 107 Ga. 683, 33 S.E. 673; Adams v. People, 109 Ill. 444, 50 Am. Rep. 617; Hendrickson v. Commonwealth, 85 Ky. 281, 7 Am. St. 596, 3 S.W. 166; Cox v. People, 80 N.Y. 500; Hopkins v. Commonwealth, 117 Ky. 941, 80 S.W. 156, 4 Ann. Cas. 958, and authorities cited in note.)

A person will not be permitted to do an act which jeopardizes the life and safety of another, and then upon the plea of accident escape liability for a homicide involuntarily resulting from his recklessness. (Potter v. State, 162 Ind. 213, 102 Am. St. 198, 70 N.E. 129, 64 L. R. A. 942, 1 Ann. Cas. 32; 21 Am. & Eng. En. of Law, 98, 191, and authorities cited; Stephen, Digest Cr. Law, art. 221; People v. Stubenvall, 62 Mich. 329, 28 N.W. 883.)

The unintentional killing of a person through the negligent handling of a firearm in any way indicating a disregard of human life is manslaughter. (State v. Grote, 109 Mo. 345, 19 S.W. 93; State v. Emory, 78 Mo. 77, 47 Am. Rep. 92; People v. Fuller, 2 Parker Crim. Rep. (N. Y.) 16; State v. Vines, 93 N.C. 493, 53 Am. Rep. 466; Sparks v. Commonwealth, 3 Bush (Ky.), 111, 96 Am. Dec. 196; Pool v. State, 87 Ga. 526, 13 S.E. 556.)

AILSHIE, J. Sullivan, C. J., concurs.

OPINION

AILSHIE, J.

Petitioner was held by the probate judge of Washington county to answer the charge of manslaughter, and has applied to this court for his discharge on the ground that the facts of the case do not disclose the commission of a public offense. The evidence produced at the preliminary examination has been attached to the petition. This court cannot weigh the evidence on habeas corpus, but if it wholly fails to disclose a public offense for which a prisoner may be held on preliminary examination, then the petitioner would be entitled to his discharge. (In re Knudtson, 10 Idaho 676, 79 P. 641.)

The facts disclosed by the evidence are in substance as follows: On the 4th day of August, 1910, at Weiser, Washington county, the petitioner, Edgar M. Heigho, hearing that one J. W. Barton had made remarks derogatory to petitioner's character, called one of his employees, Frank Miller, and requested him to accompany petitioner to the residence of Barton. Heigho and Miller went to Barton's residence about 7 o'clock in the evening, ascended the front porch and Heigho rang the door-bell. Mrs. Sylvia Riegleman, the mother in law of Barton, was living at the Barton residence and was in a bedroom at the front of the house, and immediately off from and adjoining the reception-room or hallway at the time the door-bell rang. Barton responded to the call, and as he passed through the front room and was about to open the front door, Mrs. Riegleman, who was then near him, exclaimed, "Oh, he has a gun." Barton stepped out at the door and found Heigho standing on the front porch with a gun, commonly called a revolver or pistol, hanging in a holster or scabbard, which was strapped about his body. Miller stood by the side of Heigho. Heigho asked Barton some questions as to the statements Barton had been making about him, and upon Barton asserting that he had not told anything that was not true or not common talk in the town, Heigho struck him in the face with his fist and Barton staggered back and fell into the wire netting on the screen door. Barton did not rise for a few seconds, and in the meanwhile his wife came and assisted him to arise. Heigho and Miller backed off the porch and stood in front of the doorway. Barton advanced on Heigho and struck him a couple of blows, whereupon they clinched and the wife interfered and separated them and ordered Heigho and Miller off the premises. Mrs. Riegleman was at this time at the door crying, and had been heard to say a time or two, "He will kill you" or "He has a gun." Barton and wife immediately mounted the porch where Mrs. Riegleman was on her knees resting against or over the banister, apparently unable to rise. She remarked to Barton that she was dying and again repeated something about "him having a gun." She began spitting a bloody froth and rattling in the chest. A physician was called and was unable to give her any relief, and she died inside of about thirty minutes from the time of the appearance of Heigho on the front porch. The physician who attended her made a post mortem examination, and testified that she had an aneurism of the ascending aorta and this had ruptured into the superior vena cava and caused her death. He said that excitement was one of three principal causes that will produce such a result. Heigho was thereafter arrested on the charge of manslaughter in causing the death of Mrs. Riegleman by terror and fright while he was engaged in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony.

We are now asked to determine whether under the statute of this state a person can be held for manslaughter where death was caused by fright, fear or nervous shock and where the prisoner made no assault or demonstration against the deceased, and neither offered nor threatened any physical force or violence toward the person of the deceased.

In the early history of the common law, a homicide to be criminal must have resulted from corporal injury. Fright, fear, nervous shock or producing mental disturbance, it was said, could never be the basis of a prosecution for homicide. East, in his Pleas of the Crown, c. 5, sec. 13, says: "Working upon the fancy of another or treating him harshly or unkindly, by which he dies of grief or fear, is not such a killing as the law takes notice of." An examination of the ancient English authorities fully corroborates and establishes this to have been the early English rule. (1 Hale P. C. 425-429; Steph. Dig. Cr. Law, art. 221.) This rule appears, however, to have been gradually modified and greatly relaxed in modern times by most of the English courts. So in later years we find the court holding a prisoner for manslaughter where his conduct toward his wife caused her death from shock to her nervous system. (Reg. v. Murton, 3 F. & F. 492.)

And in Reg. v. Dugal, 4 Quebec, 492, the Canadian court held the prisoner guilty of manslaughter, where with violent words and menaces he had brandished a table knife over his father and the latter became greatly agitated and weakened from the fright and died in twenty minutes thereafter of syncope.

In Regina v. Towers, 12 Cox's C. C. 530, decided in 1874, the defendant struck a twelve year old girl, who was holding a small child in her arms, and the child became frightened and went into convulsions and lingered for about six weeks and died, and ...