State v. Brooks

• Decision Date: 12 July 1899
• Parties: STATE v. BROOKS.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

57 P. 1038

23 Mont. 146

STATE v. BROOKS.

Supreme Court of Montana

July 12, 1899

Appeal from district court, Yellowstone county; C. H. Loud, Judge.

Defendant William C. Brooks, was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.

C. L Harris, for appellant.

C. B Nolan, for the State.

HUNT J.

Defendant, William C. Brooks, was convicted of murder in the first degree, for the killing of Jennie Brooks. He appeals from the judgment sentencing him to death, and from the order of the district court denying his motion for a new trial.

The evidence of the state disclosed these material facts: Jennie Brooks was the wife of the defendant. The couple had not lived together for some time. On November 18, 1898, between 4 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon, a cry of murder was heard in the neighborhood where Mrs. Brooks lived. Defendant was seen running, at the time this cry was heard, across the street, after his wife. He fired a shot as he got to the gate of the house in which she lived, and followed the woman until they reached the middle of the street, where she stopped, and they had a scuffle, in which she was down on her knees part of the time, reaching out in the direction of the defendant's hand. While in this position he pushed her back and got away from her, and fired another shot at her, asking her if she was shot. She said something in a low tone, and then ran away from him and fell dead. The defendant then fired several shots, apparently at himself, and, after doing this, went up to the body of his wife, lying on the face, close to the house, reached over and looked at it, took the revolver, put it down to her ear and fired, saying, "Now you are dead." Defendant then said he would go and give himself up, and again said, "No, I wont; I'll just shoot myself,"--and again shot the revolver off, but, as he did so, dodged his head to the side and avoided the bullets. Defendant then told the officers to come and take him, and said he would give himself up, and did so. Mrs. Brooks had no weapon. Defendant, after the shooting, told a witness that it was unnecessary to go through any preliminaries; that they could just take him out and hang him, as he was ready to die,--and handed a bunch of keys to witness, telling him that they were the keys to his place of business, and he desired that his things should be taken and sold. A boy named Charley Powers, who lived with Mrs. Brooks, testified that, just before the shooting, Brooks went to Mrs. Brooks' house, and was standing there, holding the bill of a little live black pigeon in his mouth. Brooks at that time asked his wife what men had been doing about the house about 1 o'clock on Tuesday or Wednesday night. Mrs. Brooks denied that there had been any men about there at that time, and thereupon the defendant called her a "big whore," threatened to kill her, and struck at her. She then struck him with a small stick, and they had a scuffle, in which Brooks knocked her down and shot off his pistol, but missed her. This was just before the occurrences out of doors when she was killed. The substance of the testimony in defendant's behalf was that he and his wife had quarreled a great deal, and that the separation just before the killing was at least the third that had occurred between them. They had had a quarrel on the evening of November 14th. Defendant himself did not go on the witness stand, and relied upon insanity as a defense. To sustain this plea he called a witness named Scott, who testified: That he had known defendant for about four years. That he had ne ver paid much attention to the actions, speech, appearance, and peculiarities of the defendant, but that on one day defendant called witness, and wanted him to rent a church "down there." Witness told him, "Yes;" that, if they rented it out in the winter, they could make money enough out of it to fix it up; that the rental was to be six dollars a month. That defendant went off to fix up the contract, and when he returned "he had it fixed up for six dollars for six months. So I told him: 'You must be out of your head. A man that would have sense would know better than that."' Witness said he did not think that he noticed anything peculiar in defendant's action just prior to the homicide; that the defendant was a trustee of the African Church, and a member thereof. This witness was recalled, and gave the following testimony in support of the defendant's plea of insanity: "I testified here this morning that I was present at the colored church in Billings about the month of September, 1898, at which time there was a disturbance came up in the church, and in which Mr. Brooks was one of the parties engaged. After the preaching was over, they had a minister here, and he wanted to collect some money to fix up the church; and Mr. Brooks drawed out a paper there, and proceeded to the altar to collect some dollar money and Sunday school money to represent our church, and I told him that it wasn't necessary to do that, 'cause we had no church, we simply had the building there, and we had no means, and it was no use to send any money away until we got straight on our feet here. At that time Brooks got excited, you know, because he had everybody up telling him to behave and sit down, or else go home,--one of the two. In regard to his actions he was like any one else, I suppose,--when he would get angry or mad he looked like he was crazy. I couldn't reason with him. I went to his home afterwards and tried to reason with him, but I couldn't do it. This was about an hour after the disturbance that occurred at the church. He would not listen at that time to us at all. When he gets mad he is excited. He was mad that night. He seemed to want to be the leader of our church, and he also wants to be the leader of the colored people of this town. At that time I did not think him crazy. He was excited and strong-headed, and you could not reason with him." Dr. J. H. Rinehart testified as an expert on insanity. Defendant's counsel put a long hypothetical question to him, based upon every circumstance that could have possibly been deduced from the testimony bearing at all upon the plea of insanity, and then asked him this question: "Would you say that this question contained evidences of insanity?" The doctor's reply was, substantially, that there were a great many evidences of insanity under certain circumstances, which under other circumstances would hardly pass as evidences of insanity, and that there were quite a number of things, in the proposition put, involving symptoms of insanity. It so happened that Dr. Rinehart was a witness of the homicide itself, and saw everything that occurred after the defendant and his wife left the house. The state called him in rebuttal, and he said that he was not prepared to say whether the defendant was acting like a crazy man or not; that he was "plowing around there in a terribly excited condition," and that while he never had been well enough acquainted with him to form any opinion as to his sanity at that time, yet he had no reason to think that he was insane, from his actions, because he was not intimately enough acquainted with him to decide whether he was or not; that he always considered him a sane man, from what he knew of him, and had no reason to think for a moment that he was insane. Another witness, who had known the defendant for four or five years, and had seen him frequently, testified on rebuttal that he would say that defendant was a sane man, and that at the time of the killing the thought never entered his head that Brooks was insane.

1. A witness for the defense, who testified that defendant and his wife quarreled a great deal, was asked if defendant ever stated to him anything in relation to his domestic troubles. Objection was made on the ground that this was hearsay testimony, and the court sustained the objection, defendant preserving his exception. We see no error in the ruling of the court. The witness to whom this question was put was the first called by the defendant. It was not stated to the court that the object of the question was to disclose the insanity of the defendant, nor had there been any offer of proof to that effect up to that time. The relevancy or materiality of the question did not appear by the question itself. On the contrary, it appeared to call for incompetent testimony, and the court correctly sustained the objection at the time of the ruling.

2. The court declined to permit another witness for defendant to be asked if defendant ever delivered any discourses in the African Church. The object of this question defendant's counsel stated to be to show that defendant "was a devoted Christian." We think that the court properly excluded this testimony. Defendant had a right to put his character in issue, but it was not competent to prove good character by showing that defendant had preached at divers times. If the object was to show insanity, that object was not disclosed by the question or statement of counsel.

3. This same witness was asked what, if anything, defendant had said to him on the streets of Billings at half past 1 o'clock on the day of the homicide. This was excluded, and we think properly so, upon the ground that it apparently called for hearsay testimony in defendant's behalf. If its purpose was to show insanity, such purpose should have been disclosed.

4. Josephine Samples, called by defendant, after testifying that Brooks and his wife quarreled a great deal, was asked if she knew whether or not defendant ever charged his wife with infidelity. The court sustained an objection to this question, and the witness was not allowed to answer. Counsel for defendant did not state to the court that the object of this question was to prove the...