Rogers v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 27 September 1894
• Citation: 27 S.W. 813,96 Ky. 24
• Parties: ROGERS v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

27 S.W. 813

96 Ky. 24

ROGERS v. COMMONWEALTH.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

September 27, 1894

Appeal from circuit court, Grayson county.

"To be officially reported."

Charles Rogers was convicted of murder, and appeals. Reversed.

E Dudley Walker, J. S. Wortham, and W. R. Haynes, for appellant.

W. J Hendrick, for appellee.

HAZELRIGG J.

From a judgment in pursuance of a verdict convicting him of the murder of W. R. Prewitt, and sentencing him to the penitentiary for life, the appellant, a lad of 19 years, has appealed to this court, and complains-First, that the instructions given by the trial court, and particularly the one numbered the sixth, were prejudicial to him; and, second that an instruction on the law of voluntary manslaughter was refused him. Other alleged errors do not appear to be substantial, and need not be noticed.

The first instruction presents the law of murder in unobjectionable form. The second, the law of involuntary manslaughter. The blow was inflicted with a wooden club,-the half of a keg stave,-and if, by its use, the accused did not intend to produce death, he was to be found guilty of a misdemeanor only. The third instruction is on a point not involved here. The fourth and fifth were on the subject of insanity, though there was no testimony tending to show such a mental condition, save an affidavit of the accused for a continuance, stating that his mother would prove him feeble-minded. This issue appears to have been an insignificant one.

The sixth and objectionable instruction is as follows: "The law presumes that a sane man intends the natural and probable consequences of any act which he willfully and deliberately does." There being no appreciable proof to the contrary the accused must be held to be sane, and the consequences of his willful and deliberate act was death. These consequences were easily assumed as naturally following the blow; hence, the instruction is to the effect that the accused is presumed to have intended to kill the deceased by the use of the club. Mr. Wharton says, "The doctrine that malice and intent are presumptions of law to be inferred from the mere act of killing belongs, even if correct, to purely speculative jurisprudence, and cannot be applied to any case that can possibly arise before the courts." In Madden v. State, 1 Kan. 356, quoted and approved in Farris v. Com., 14 Bush, 373, it is held that the presumption that the...