Lewis v. State
| Decision Date | 21 December 1884 |
| Citation | 72 Ga. 164 |
| Parties | LEWIS v. THE STATE OF GEORGIA |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
September Term, 1883.
1. Death ensuing in consequence of the wilful omission of a duty is murder; death ensuing in consequence of the negligent omission of a duty is manslaughter. Therefore, where the death of a child resulted from cruelty and want of proper food and clothing, the person whose duty it was to maintain and care for it, and whose conduct resulted in its death, was guilty of murder, if the acts were wilfully done; and of manslaughter, if they were negligently done, without malice.
( a. ) If the death results from the commission of an unlawful act, which, in its consequences, naturally tends to destroy the life of a human being, although the killing itself be not intended, the offense is murder.
( b. ) The charge was full and fair, and the question of animus was sufficiently submitted to the jury.
2. The sayings of the defendant, made by her during the continuance of the cruel treatment, were not admissible on her own behalf, when offered by her to account for scars and other marks of violence and severe usage appearing upon the person of the deceased.
3. The verdict was not only sustained, but required by the evidence and a recommendation to life imprisonment was all that the defendant could ask.
Criminal Law. Murder. Manslaughter. Charge of Court. Before Judge LAWSON. Baldwin Superior Court. January Term, 1883.
Louisa Lewis was indicted for murder, and was convicted, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. The facts were briefly, as follows:
A child of eight or ten years of age died under such circumstances as to cause an inquest to be held. A physician examined his body, and found evidences of great ill-treatment and severe usage. There were scars on the head and on different portions of the body, apparently the results of blows; some were older and some of recent date; some of the latter were two inches in length by half an inch broad; there was a contusion on the side, as if from a severe blow; there were fresh marks on the legs, as of a switch or other instrument; the right wrist had been burned, and the wound partially healed, but re-opened apparently by a recent blow, and left raw, and the body was fearfully emaciated. In the opinion of the physician, the child came to his death from want of proper food, exposure to inclement weather, and the treatment which it had received.
From other testimony for the state, the following history of this child's life is taken:
The child was an orphan, named Willie McDowell. Its mother died in Memphis, and left her child to defendant; it was then about five years of age. One witness testified that even then complaint was made to him, as town marshal, by the neighbors about the cruel beating of the boy. The witness saw him, and he had been cut over the head, and his lip was swollen, as if from a blow. Defendant sent him to Augusta, and he remained there for some time, being brought back several months before his death. After his return, the treatment of him was very severe. Defendant tied him with ropes, blindfolded him, and stripped him naked in the bitter cold weather of winter, used sticks and a knotted plow-line to whip him, and sent him to the cotton-field so insufficiently clothed that one of the neighbors protested against it. After one of these beatings blood was seen running down the legs of the boy, and his clothes were clotted with it. She broke a broom-handle over his head. And because she said he had befouled the floor, she forced him to eat his own excrement. On one or two occasions he asked neighbors for food, and once was seen to obtain a crust to eat by concealing it with his feet. On different occasions she stated that she wished the child was dead, that she would whip or kill him, and that he ought to be in his grave. On the morning of the death, the child was sent to the spring for water. He was slow in returning, and defendant went for him. She beat him severely over his hands— only partially healed from the burning which they had received— with a barrel hoop, until the blood was running from them; she then threw water over them, and, putting a bucket on his head, told him to carry it. He was too weak to do so, and defendant took the bucket herself, caught him by the wrist, and pulled him after her up the hill; when she turned him loose, he fell several times on the road to the house. After arriving there, he lay down and began to cry, and began to catch at things near him, as if in a fit. Defendant administered balsam and whisky; he bit a piece from the glass; she threatened to have him carried to the poor-house, if he did not hush. He was frightened, and ran under the bed; she dragged him out, and put him on his pallet. Those present went into the next room and left him there. After a while, the noise ceased; the child was quiet. He was dead.
The evidence for the defendant went to show that the child was diseased, had hereditary syphilis, causing the sores which were on his head and body, which would run and heal; that her treatment of him was not cruel, and that she provided sufficiently for him.
The jury convicted defendant, with a recommendation that she be imprisoned for life. She moved for a new trial, on the following grounds:
(1.) Because the verdict was contrary to law and evidence.
(2.) Because the court rejected the evidence of a witness offered to show that some time prior to the death of the deceased, when defendant exhibited to the witness the scars on the child's head, she made certain statements concerning them and their cause.
(3.) Because the court charged, without quailification as to animus, that if the conduct of the defendant did contribute to the death of the child, it was criminal, and she would be guilty of one or another of the crimes as mentioned,— murder, or voluntary or involuntary manslaugter; and if his death resulted either proximately or remotely from her conduct in the case, then she is guilty of some crime. [The court charged fully as to the presumption of innocence, reasonable doubts, etc., and after stating the position of the state and the defence, charged as follows ...
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