Rains v. State

• Decision Date: 03 January 1899
• Docket Number: 18,510
• Citation: 52 N.E. 450,152 Ind. 69
• Parties: Rains v. The State
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

52 N.E. 450

152 Ind. 69

Rains v. The State

No. 18,510

Supreme Court of Indiana

January 3, 1899

From the Tipton Circuit Court.

Affirmed.

Oglebay & Oglebay, for appellant.

W. A Ketcham, Attorney-General, Merrill Moores and T. M. Butler for State.

OPINION

Jordan, J.

Appellant was charged by indictment with an assault on one George Goar with intent to commit murder in the first degree. A trial by jury resulted in his being convicted of an assault with the intent to commit the felonious crime of manslaughter, and over his motion for a new trial, he was sentenced by the court to be imprisoned in the State prison, north, for a period of not less than two and not more than fourteen years.

The only errors discussed by counsel for appellant are based on the action of the trial court in denying the motion for a new trial. This motion enumerated some thirty-five reasons, which in the main relate to alleged errors of the court in giving and in refusing to give certain instructions to the jury, and also in modifying some of the instructions tendered by the appellant and in giving them to the jury in a modified form. Several of the charges of which appellant complains pertain to the elements which enter into the crime of murder in the first and second degrees, and to matters relating to these two degrees of homicide; therefore, if it were conceded that all of these are erroneous, they would be considered harmless, and appellant would not be in an attitude to assail them for the reason that he stands convicted only of perpetrating an assault with the intent to commit the crime of manslaughter, the lowest degree of homicide, and as the element of malice, with or without premeditation, does not enter into this latter degree, it is not apparent how the instructions criticised by counsel for appellant which relate to the question of malice, and other questions pertaining wholly to the higher degrees of homicide, could have exerted any unfavorable influence over the jury in arriving at the verdict which they returned. Jarrell v. State, 58 Ind. 293; Long v. State, 95 Ind. 481.

There is no merit in the contention of appellant that instruction fourteen, given by the court in the series of those requested by the State, is prejudicial to his rights. This latter charge deals with the question of self-defense interposed in the case, and the only objection urged is that it is but a repetition of what the court had previously advised the jury upon the same question, with the addition that "the law does not permit a person to revenge himself in any case." The court, in its instructions upon the subject of reasonable doubt, seems to have advised the jury very fully in reference to the law applicable to that subject. Some of the court's charges upon this feature of the law are condemned by counsel for appellant; especially do they criticise number eighteen given at the request of the State. By this instruction the court substantially told the jurors that the rule, which required them to be satisfied of the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt, did not require that they should be satisfied beyond such doubt of "each link in the chain of evidence relied upon to establish his guilt." (Our italics.) The court, continuing in the charge, closed it with the following statement: "It is sufficient if, taking the evidence all together, the jury are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty." The part of this charge italicised, which informed the jurors that each link in the chain of evidence relied upon to establish the defendant's guilt was not required to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, standing alone, may be said to be inaccurate and therefore objectionable. The court had previously advised the jury, by an instruction tendered by appellant, that the rule of reasonable doubt extended to every material allegation of the indictment, and had also said in another instruction that such a doubt might arise either from the evidence or lack of evidence in the case. The latter part of the instruction in question, in effect, it may be said, advised the jury that if all of the evidence taken together satisfied them beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt, which was the ultimate question to be determined in the case, that it was sufficient.

The rule, as settled by the decisions of this court is, that instructions upon a subject must be considered and construed together and are not to be considered in detached parts, and when so considered, if they, as a whole, correctly declare the law, they will not be overthrown although some fragmentary or isolated parts thereof are not accurate or clear. Tested by this rule, it may be said that when the entire series of instructions, which the court gave on the question of reasonable doubt, is considered and construed together, the jury were properly advised on that subject, and therefore appellant's attack on that part of the...