State v. Bollinger

• Decision Date: 30 April 1879
• Citation: 69 Mo. 577
• Parties: THE STATE, Appellant, v. BOLLINGER.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

69 Mo. 577

THE STATE, Appellant,

v.BOLLINGER.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

April Term, 1879.

Appeal from Madison Circuit Court.--HON. WM. N. NALLE, Judge.

J. L. Smith, Attorney-General, for the State.

Duchouquette & Fox for respondent.

NORTON, J.

At the September term, 1878, of the circuit court of Madison county, the grand jury returned into court an indictment in the usual form, charging Adam Bollinger with murder in the first degree for the killing of one Jack Matthews on the 30th day of October, 1862. At the September adjourned term of said court, the defendant withdrew his plea of “not guilty,” which had been theretofore entered to said indictment, and pleaded “guilty of murder in the second degree,” which was accepted by the court. He was afterwards brought up to receive sentence, and the record recites that being “informed of the nature of his plea of guilty of murder in the second degree, heretofore entered by him in said cause, and being asked by the court if he had any legal cause to show why judgment should not be pronounced against him according to law, says: ‘That at the time of the alleged commission of the crime charged in the indictment, he was a slave, the property of Mrs. Nancy Bollinger, and that the deceased was at the time a slave, the property of John J. Matthews, and claims for the reasons stated that he was not amenable to the laws for the punishment of free white persons.’ And still failing to show such cause, it is therefore sentenced, ordered and adjudged that the defendant be confined in the penitentiary for the period of ten years, etc.” The defendant thereupon moved to arrest the judgment for the reasons “that defendant being a slave, and the said Jack Matthews, alleged to have been killed, being a slave also, said alleged act in defendant was not punishable under the laws in force at the time of the alleged commission of the offense,” and, “that a slave, under the laws in force at the time of the alleged commission of the offense, was not punishable (by imprisonment) in the penitentiary for the commission of any felony.” The bill of exceptions recites “that said motion was taken up, and upon the hearing of the facts found by the court, and the facts in the case as admitted and agreed upon by the prosecuting attorney and defendant,” the court sustained the same, to which the state excepted. Judgment was thereupon rendered, which recites, “that the court finding upon the admissions of the parties, that the offense charged in the indictment was committed on the 30th day of October, 1862: that the defendant was a slave, etc., and that the deceased, etc., was at the same time a slave, etc., it was ordered that said motion be sustained,” and that defendant go hence without day....