Knights v. State

• Decision Date: 08 March 1899
• Citation: 58 Neb. 225,78 N.W. 508
• Parties: KNIGHTS v. STATE.
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

58 Neb. 225

78 N.W. 508

KNIGHTS

v.STATE.

Supreme Court of Nebraska.

March 8, 1899.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. In the trial of a criminal case the court is not ordinarily justified in assuming the existence of any material fact put in issue by the plea of not guilty; but there is not an assumption of any fact in an instruction plainly professing to be a mere statement of the material averments of the information.

2. In a criminal prosecution it is reversible error to instruct the jury, upon the question of insanity, that the burden of proof shifts from the prisoner to the state during the progress of the trial.

3. But the court, in its charge, may properly say that, when the presumption of sanity encounters opposing proof, the burden is upon the state to satisfy the jury by evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused was sane at the time he committed the alleged criminal act.

4. One suffering under a defect of reason to such an extent that he was incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong with respect to a particular act is not amenable to the laws against crime for having committed such act.

5. And it is prejudicially erroneous to inform the jury in a criminal case, where the defense is insanity, that want of capacity on the part of the prisoner to understand the nature of the act in question, at the time of its commission, is necessary to render him irresponsible.

6. Whether the court might properly permit private counsel in a criminal case to make an argument to the jury on behalf of the state, when such counsel did not appear in his professional character until the evidence was closed, quære.

7. It is competent to prove the ownership of a store building by parol evidence, when it does not appear that such building is real estate.

8. Where a person is charged with the commission of a specific crime, testimony may be received of other similar acts, committed about the same time, for the purpose only of establishing the criminal intent of the accused.

9. On the trial of a person informed against for burning property with intent to prejudice an insurance company, where the accused refuses to produce the policies of insurance, secondary evidence is competent to show the contents of the policies, that they were made out and delivered by an authorized agent of the companies, and that defendant was claiming indemnity under them.

Error to district court, Washington county; Powell, Judge.

George Knights was convicted of arson, and he brings error. Reversed.Duffie & Van Dusen and Jesse T. Davis, for plaintiff in error.

C. J. Smyth, Atty. Gen., and W. D. Oldham, Dep. Atty. Gen., for the State.

SULLIVAN, J.

In the district court of Washington county, George Knights was convicted of the crime of arson, and sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of 12 years. The first count of the information charged the burning of an insured stock of merchandise owned by the defendant, and the second charged the burning of a leased store building in which the property was kept. The jury found in favor of the state upon both counts.

Exception was taken to the fifth instruction, on the theory that it assumes that the merchandise in question was insured, and that the insurer was a corporation. This paragraph of the charge plainly professes to be a statement of the facts necessary to be established to warrant a conviction; and it seems to us that neither a casual nor critical reading of it could possibly lead a person of average intelligence to suppose that the existence of any essential fact was assumed by the court. Doubtless, a more perspicuous presentation of the issues might have been made; but the thought of the instruction is evident, and the language sufficiently apt.

In relation to the defense of insanity, upon which the prisoner relied, the court said to the jury, in the twelfth instruction: “You are instructed that the law presumes that every person is sane, and it is not necessary for the state to introduce evidence of sanity in the first instance. When, however, any evidence has been introduced tending to prove insanity of an accused, the burden is then upon the state to establish the fact of the accused's sanity, the same as any other material fact to be established by the state to warrant a conviction. If the testimony introduced in this case tending to prove that the defendant was insane at the time of the alleged burning described in the information raises in your mind a reasonable doubt of his sanity at the time of the alleged burning, then your verdict should be acquittal.” It is contended that this instruction gave the jury to understand that the burden of establishing his insanity rested upon the defendant up to a certain point in the trial, and was then shifted from him to the state. Snider v. State (Neb.) 76 N. W. 574, is cited as authority for this contention. Whatever may be said of the meaning of the instruction considered in the Snider Case, there can be no room to doubt that the court, in the instruction now under consideration, stated the correct doctrine in unmistakable terms. In this case the jury were informed that the law presumes sanity, but that, when the defendant produced evidence tending to prove insanity, the state was charged with a burden which did not previously rest upon it. The court did not say nor imply that the burden of proving insanity was ever on the accused, or that there was a shifting of the burden from him to the state. The substance of what the court did say was that, when the legal presumption of sanity encountered opposing evidence, the law then, for the first time, imposed on the state the onus of showing the prisoner's sanity by the proper measure of proof.

The thirteenth instruction was also excepted to, and its correctness is now vigorously challenged. It is as follows: “You are instructed that insanity which renders a person irresponsible for an act is such a diseased condition of the mind as renders the person incapable of understanding the nature of such act, and incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong with respect to such act. So in this case, if the evidence introduced tending to show that the defendant was at the time of the fire incapable of understanding and knowing what he was doing, and that at such time he could not distinguish between right and wrong, raises in your mind a reasonable doubt of the defendant's sanity at the time of such fire, then you should acquit him.” By this instruction the jury were plainly told that they might acquit the defendant, on the ground of insanity, only in...