People v. Sprague
| Decision Date | 14 March 1916 |
| Citation | 217 N.Y. 373,111 N.E. 1077 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. SPRAGUE. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Supreme Court, Trial Term, Yates County.
Charley Sprague, 2d, was convicted of murder in the first degree and he appeals. Affirmed.
See, also, 215 N.Y. 266, 109 N.E. 247.
Lewis H. Watkins, of Watkins, for appellant.
Spencer F. Lincoln, of Penn Yan, for the People.
The appellant was charged by indictment with the crime of murder in the first degree, committed October 17, 1911, by shooting George A. Martin with a rifle. He was tried upon the indictment and was convicted February 8, 1912, by the verdict of the jury. When assigning the present counsel for the appellant, we gave expression, in the interest of justice and its proper administration, to our condemnation of the delay, inexcusable and pernicious to the authority and influence of the law, which intervened the judgment and the presentation of the case to this court. People v. Sprague, 215 N.Y. 266, 109 N.E. 247.
The counsel for the appellant urges here with earnestness and ability that the verdict was contrary to the necessary effect of the evidence. His argument is based upon: (a) The location of the appellant and the location and physical attitude of the deceased; (b) the course of the bullet in the body of the deceased; and (c) the lodging of the bullet in the arm after passing through the trunk of the body of the deceased. He seeks to convince us that the conditions in those three particulars demonstrate that the bullet did not come from the rifle of the appellant. The course of the bullet through the trunk of the body of the deceased was nearly straight or horizontal from side to side approximately. It did not come in contact with any large bone, and emerging from the trunk embedded itself in the bone of the arm, splitting open the humerus, but not tearing it in pieces. The rifle of the appellant was of the Winchester type, in caliber designated a 32–40; that is, using a cartridge thirty-two one-hundredths of an inch in diameter and loaded with 40 grains of black powder and 17 grains of smokeless powder and a bullet containing 165 grains of lead. The bullet which killed the deceased came from a rifle of such description. Those statements are uncontroverted. The counsel for the appellant asserts that if the bullet was fired from the rifle in the hands of the appellant, the place where the appellant stood when firing was 245 feet from and at an elevation of 100 feet above the point where the deceased was, and, further, that the deceased was then standing and facing the appellant. Upon those facts he argues that a bullet which passed horizontally through the trunk of the body of the deceased from side to side and ended its course in his arm could not, of physical necessity, have gone from the rifle of the appellant; a bullet which went from the rifle of the appellant must have entered the body at its front, passed decidedly downward in its course through the body, and emerging gone through and far beyond the arm of the deceased.
[1] The direct evidence in regard to the act of shooting is wholly in the dying declaration of the deceased and the testimony of the appellant as a witness in his own behalf at the trial. The dying declaration does not state with any aidful degree of precision the location of either of the men or the physical attitude or posture of the deceased when shot. It does not support the facts asserted by appellant's counsel. The appellant testified:
It is manifest that this evidence does not support the assertions upon which the appellant's argument rests. Additional evidence described the physical condition and characteristics of the general locality and the relative locations of the potato patch, the peach orchard, the wood, and the point at which the deceased was at a time an hour or more before, and where the articles used by him in the work were found after he was shot. There is not any evidence, including that of the appellant, which assumes to fix with exactness the location of either of the two men or the position or physical attitude of the deceased at the time of the shooting. Moreover, the effect of the testimony of the appellant throughout, whether or not it was contradicted, was to be determined by the jury, because he was interested to the uttermost in the result of the trial. We cannot give the evidence upon which the appellant bases his assertions and argument, the conclusiveness with which he invests it, nor a weight and effect destructive of the verdict. There was additional evidence, a particular statement of which is not required, tending to show a deliberate and premeditated design on the part of the appellant to effect the death of the deceased. The trial was conducted with commendable decorum and fairness on the part of the trial justice and the counsel. The charge of the trial justice was impartial, clear, and comprehensive. Upon the entire evidence the verdict was justified and the judgment should not be reversed, unless the appellant did not have a fair and just trial, as he claims, because of an error on the part of the court in admitting testimony, or misconduct on the part of the jury in reaching the verdict.
[2] The error in admitting testimony was this: Two witnesses in behalf of the people were permitted to testify that the deceased when he reached the doorway of his home, after he was shot, in answer to the question “What is the matter?” stated, “Charley Sprague has shot me.” The appellant's counsel made proper objection to the questions which called forth the statement, and exception to the ruling admitting them. It is the law that the admission in evidence of the declaration of an injured person concerning the cause or manner of the injury is an exception to the general rule that hearsay evidence is inadmissible, and should occur only when the declaration is so spontaneous or natural that the truthfulness of the...
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