People v. Jernatowski

• Decision Date: 13 May 1924
• Citation: 144 N.E. 497,238 N.Y. 188
• Parties: PEOPLE v. JERNATOWSKI.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

238 N.Y. 188

144 N.E. 497

PEOPLE

v.JERNATOWSKI.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 13, 1924.

Michael Jernatowski was convicted of murder in first degree, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Trial Term, Erie County.

H. B. Butterfield and Charles D. Stickney, both of Buffalo, for appellant.

Guy B. Moore, Dist. Atty., of Buffalo (Walter F. Hofheins, of Buffalo, of counsel), for the People.

HISCOCK, C. J.

The defendant has been convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree committed upon a woman named Hanover.

The background of this alleged crime was a railroad strike in Buffalo. The decedent's husband was a foreman in the employ of the railroad company and stayed at his post when the strike occurred. It does not appear whether the defendant was a striker, but apparently he had a vicious animosity toward those who continued in or entered into the employ of the railroad company at the time of the strike. As standing out against this background the jury were entitled to find the following facts, amongst others:

On the night of the homicide defendant and several other yound men, after spending the evening on the streets and in various resorts, at a late hour passed a house where lived the decedent, her husband, and a son with his wife and young child. After the defendant and one or two others had gone a short distance beyond this house one of the number said that he had seen a man or men in the Hanover yard, and, the defendant saying something about strikebreakers or scabs, and one of the gang making a vile threat, the defendant and his brother started on a run toward the Hanover house, stopping in front thereof. There were lights in the house which could be seen from the outside, and the deceased, who was standing close to the window, called out, ‘Get away from there!’ ‘What do you fellows want here?’ ‘What are you doing there?’ or something like that, and immediately defendant and his brother fired several shots into the house and one of these shots fired by defendant killed the decedent.

On these facts and others of a more or less formal character the trial court permitted the jury to find that defendant was guilty of murder in the first degree under those provisions of section 1044 of the Penal Law (Consol. Laws, c. 40) which declare that--

‘The killing of a human being, unless it is excusable or justifiable, is murder in the first degree, when committed. * * *

‘2. By an act imminently dangerous to others, and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, although without a premeditated design to effect the death of any individual.’

[1] It is true that the trial judge in his charge did give irrelevant definitions of murder when the homicide is committed intentionally with or without deliberation and premeditation. We shall assume that those definitionshad no applicability to the facts of this case, and if we thought that it was possible that the jury had been led into convicting the defendant on a wrong theory we should of course feel obliged to grant a new trial. We think, however, that the jury were not misled in this respect, but that, as stated by the appellant in his present brief, the trial was clearly conducted on the theory that the defendant, if guilty of murder in the first degree, was thus guilty under that subdivision of the statute which we have quoted, and that therefore no harm was done by these references by the trial judge to other definitions of murder, and to which no exception was taken.

[2] The substantial complaint made by appellant's counsel, and the only one which requires any consideration, is that, in order to constitute the crime of which defendant has been convicted, there must have been present in his mind at the time he fired the shot which killed the decedent a specific and well-defined intention to kill some one, and that there was no evidence of such intention. That is the only question which we find it necessary to discuss even briefly, whether an intent to kill is made a necessary element by the statute under which the defendant has been convicted. We do not think that it is.

It is certain that neither principles of fundamental justice nor the more technical rules of criminal law demand that such intent should be made a necessary ingredient of this class of murders. Where a person, as the jury found this defendant did, aware that there are human beings in a house, fires several shots into it, knowing that some one may be killed, and with reckless...