Jane v. State
| Decision Date | 30 April 1831 |
| Citation | 3 Mo. 61 |
| Parties | JANE (A SLAVE) v. THE STATE. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
ERROR FROM CALLAWAY CIRCUIT COURT
Jane was indicted in the Callaway Circuit Court for the murder of her infant child. The indictment contained three counts. She was convicted on the first and third counts, and acquitted on the second. To reverse the judgment of the Circuit Court, she now prosecutes her writ of error in this court.
The first count charges that the prisoner “on the 8th and 9th days of December, in the year” &c., “at” &c., “did knowingly, wilfully, feloniously and of her malice aforethought, mix and mingle a certain deadly poison,” &c., “and afterwards on the days and year aforesaid,” &c., “gave to her said infant child, Angeline, to drink,” &c., “that the said Angeline did then and there take, drink and swallow the same,” &c., “and by the operation thereof, became sick,” &c., and “from the said days and year aforesaid on which she the said Angeline so took, drank and swallowed down the same as aforesaid, until the 11th day of December in the year last aforesaid, at the county of Callaway aforesaid, did languish and languishing did live, and on said 11th day of December in the year last aforesaid, the said Jane, that she might more speedily kill and murder said Angeline, with force and arms at the county of Callaway aforesaid, in and upon the said Angeline then and there being, feloniously, wilfully and of her malice aforethought, made an assault, and that the said Jane, then and there in and with bed clothes, feloniously, wilfully and of her malice aforethought, did wrap up and cover over said Angeline, by means of which wrapping up and covering over said Angeline in and with said bed clothes, by the said Jane as aforesaid, the said Angeline was then and there choked, suffocated and smothered; of which said choking, suffocating and smothering, and of the poison aforesaid, so drank, taken and swallowed down into her body as aforesaid, and of the sickness and distemper thereby occasioned, did then and there die.” The third count charges, “that the said Jane a slave, and the property of said Henry Brite, as aforesaid, on the eighth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty, at the county of Callaway aforesaid, gave and administered to her infant child called Angeline, certain medicine called laudanum, against the form of the statute,” &c. A motion was made in arrest of judgment and overruled by the Circuit Court. The reasons then urged, are now with some others, assigned for error.
The first nine errors are assigned to the defects in the caption of the indictment, as same appears in the record, which has been most awkwardly and imperfectly made up by the clerk of the Circuit Court, and are expressly waived by the counsel for the plaintiff in error, to avoid the delay which would attend a certiorari. The tenth error assigned is, “that in neither count of said indictment, is the word ‘Callaway’ averred immediately before or after the averment, that the grand jury found the same upon their oaths.” Eleventh. Because the first count in said indictment, is repugnant as to time, in this, that after several different days are mentioned, the venue is laid “then and there,” to a material allegation in said count. Twelfth. Because it is not averred in the said first count, that the wrapping up, &c., was done with an intent to kill and murder, neither is it averred that the mixing and giving the poison, &c., was done with intent to murder, &c. Thirteenth. Because the third count does not pursue the words of the statute. Fourteenth. Because the words ““then and there” are not inserted immediately after the words “Callaway aforesaid,” in...
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