Leseney v. State
| Decision Date | 31 March 1917 |
| Docket Number | A-2270. |
| Parties | LESENEY v. STATE. |
| Court | United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma |
Syllabus by the Court.
Where the indictment charges, and the evidence clearly shows, that the accused is guilty of murder or nothing, it is error for the court to instruct the jury upon manslaughter in the first degree; for in such cases, if the accused is guilty, the law fixes no other punishment for the crime than death, or imprisonment for life. If, on the other hand, the accused is not guilty, nothing less than a complete vindication can meet the ends of justice; and the jury should not be permitted to deprive the accused of the benefit of a reasonable and well-founded doubt as to his guilt of murder by a compromise.
Error from District Court, Stevens County; Frank M. Bailey, Judge.
Oma Leseney was convicted of manslaughter in the first degree and she brings error. Reversed and remanded.
Hamon & Ellis, of Lawton, for plaintiff in error.
R McMillan, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
In this case plaintiff in error, Oma Leseney, was tried for murder it being charged that she, in connection with others poisoned her former husband, Joseph H. Howard, by willfully, knowingly, purposely, and maliciously administering arsenic. There was no allegation in the indictment, or attempt, either on the part of the state or the plaintiff in error, to prove that arsenic was negligently or recklessly administered by the plaintiff in error to the deceased. But the state's theory was that the poison was willfully and purposely administered. And the theory of the plaintiff in error was that her husband was not poisoned at all. And under these conditions it is our judgment that the plaintiff in error was guilty of murder or nothing. If the state's theory was true, then there could be no middle ground no excuse, no extenuation, no palliation, no mitigation. If, on the other hand, it was not true, then nothing less than a complete vindication could meet the ends of justice.
But the learned trial judge, over the protest and objection of the plaintiff in error, gave an instruction on manslaughter in the first degree; and the jury found the plaintiff in error guilty of manslaughter in the first degree, and fixed her punishment at seven years in the penitentiary. The giving of this instruction is assigned as error; and, as above indicated, we think, the assignment is well taken; for either the state or the plaintiff in error, one or the other, by this verdict has been cheated. If the plaintiff in error is guilty, no other punishment is prescribed by law for her crime than death or imprisonment for life. If, on the other hand, she is not guilty, or if the jury entertained a reasonable and well-founded doubt of her having committed the atrocious crime of which she was charged, then she was entitled to an acquittal at their hands. Under this record there is no middle ground, and it was the duty of the jury to bring in a verdict either of murder or an acquittal. But by the unauthorized latitude given them in this instruction they might, and they did, do neither.
It can hardly be believed that, if the jury had believed beyond a reasonable doubt that the plaintiff in error was guilty of deliberately poisoning the man to whom she had plighted troth, they would have hesitated in finding her guilty of murder. And the very fact that they did not do this clearly indicates that they had a doubt upon that question. And, that being true, the plaintiff in error was, under the law entitled to the benefit of that doubt, and should not have been deprived of it by a compromise. She had a right to stand upon the battle ground selected by the state, and demand that she either be convicted of the crime charged, and for which she had been called into court to answer, or acquitted, since there was no evidence tending in the least to prove a lesser degree of the crime. The man who lies in ambush and shoots his victim or the person who deliberately administers poison can be guilty of nothing less than murder; and under such conditions no set of crimes should be submitted to the jury from which they might carve the offense. But the question for the jury under such circumstances is whether or not the accused...
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