State v. Champoux

• Citation: 33 Wash. 339,74 P. 557
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Washington
• Decision Date: 05 December 1903
• Parties: STATE v. CHAMPOUX.

74 P. 557

33 Wash. 339

STATE v. CHAMPOUX.

Supreme Court of Washington

December 5, 1903

Appeal from Superior Court, King County; W. R. Bell, Judge.

James Champoux was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.

A. J Speckert, for appellant.

W. T. Scott, Elmer E. Todd, and Hermon W. Craven for the State.

DUNBAR J.

Appellant was found guilty of murder in the first degree by the superior court of King county, and judgment was pronounced in accordance with the verdict.

The charging part of the information on which the appellant was convicted is as follows: 'He, the said James Champoux, in King county, state of Washington, on the 5th day of November 1902, unlawfully, feloniously, purposely, and of his deliberate and premeditated malice, an assault did make in and upon the person of Lottie Brace with a deadly weapon, to wit, a knife then and there had and held in the hand of the said James Champoux, and with which he then and there unlawfully, feloniously, purposely, and of his deliberate and premeditated malice, struck, cut, and mortally wounded the said Lottie Brace, from which said mortal wounding the said Lottie Brace then and there languished, and languishing died.' It is sturdily contended that this information will not sustain a conviction for murder in the first or second degree, or for any greater degree of crime than manslaughter, for the alleged reason that it fails to state an intention to kill; that, unless the intention exists, and the killing actually takes place, there is no murder in either the first or second degree, under our statute; and that it only charges the accused with an intention to commit an assault. Leonard v. Territory, 2 Wash. T. 381, 7 P. 872, and Blanton v. State, 1 Wash. St. 265, 24 P. 439, are relied upon in support of such contention. But whatever may be said of the merits of those decisions, both of which were rendered by a bare majority of the respective courts deciding them, it is not necessary in this case to either overrule or reaffirm the doctrine there announced, for the reason that the cases are plainly distinguishable, especially if this court should indulge in the nice distinctions made in those cases, which resulted in the conclusion that intent to kill was not charged. In the indictment in the Leonard Case there was a great deal of involved verbiage, and the learned chief justice who wrote the opinion, after a somewhat technical analysis of the language used in the indictment, reached the conclusion that no intent to murder was charged in the main or charging part of the indictment, and that the concluding expression, 'and so the jurors aforesaid do say, * * * in manner and form aforesaid, said Andrew Leonard, the said Ambrose Patton feloniously, purposely, and of his deliberate and premeditated malice, by means of said gun and the shooting aforesaid, did kill and murder aforesaid,' etc., was not the charging of any fact, but was only the statement of an inference from the facts previously stated. In Blanton v. State, supra, the indictment was substantially the same as in Leonard v. Territory, and in both cases Fouts v. State, 8 Ohio St. 98, was cited by the court and relied upon in support of the decisions holding the indictment insufficient in the particulars mentioned. But that case, as we shall hereafter see, is not authority for holding the information in this case insufficient to sustain the judgment for murder. We think, if the searching analysis employed by the court in the Leonard Case had been brought to bear on an information like the one at bar, the court would have had no difficulty in discovering a charge of intent to murder. Certainly an indictment charging that A. unlawfully, feloniously, purposely, and of his deliberate and premeditated malice, mortally wounded B. (with the other necessary averments as to time, place, and manner), charges an intent to murder, for it would be doing violence to the ordinary construction of language and to common sense to announce that one man could intend to mortally wound another without intending to kill him; and, if he intended to kill him unlawfully, feloniously, and with premeditated malice, it is evident that he intended to murder him. An analysis of this information shows that that is in effect what is charged, for, treating all the words between the word 'malice,' in the third line of the information, and the word 'struck,' in the seventh line of the information, as descriptive, we have the substance of the charge as follows: 'He purposely and of his deliberate and premeditaded malice struck, cut, and mortally wounded the said Lottie Brace, from which said mortal wound said Lottie Brace then and there languished, and languishing died.' Or even commencing with the word 'he,' in the center of the sixth line of the information, the substance of the charge is as follows: 'He then and there unlawfully, feloniously, and of his deliberate and premeditated malice, struck, cut, and mortally wounded the said Lottie Brace,' etc. Either of these statements constitutes a good indictment, so far as the question of intent to murder is concerned. This conclusion is indorsed by the Supreme Court of the state of Ohio, which rendered the decision in Fouts v. State, supra, which is cited by all that line of cases holding bad such indictments as were passed upon in the Leonard and Blanton Cases, for, at the same term of court in which the case of Fouts v. State was tried, viz., the December term, 1857, there was tried the case of Loeffner v. State, which was not reported until in 10 Ohio St. 598, where it was held that an averment that the accused purposely and of his deliberate and premeditated malice gave to H. a mortal wound, from which he instantly died, is sufficient; the intent to inflict a mortal wound importing ex vi termini an intent to kill. No mention was there made of the Fouts Case, the court evidently concluding that the distinction between the two indictments was evident. So in this case the intent to mortally wound, being charged, imports ex vi termini an intent to kill. See, also, Territory v. Godas (Mont.) 21 P. 26, where an indictment identical with the one under consideration, so far as the question of intent is concerned, was held to charge an intent to kill. The statute, it is true, provides that the indictment must be direct and certain as it regards the party charged, the crime charged, and the particular circumstances of the crime charged, when they are necessary to constitute a complete crime. But what is the reason for these cautionary provisions of the statute? The statute itself answers the query, viz., so that a person of common understanding may know what is intended; and the provisions just above quoted should be construed in reference to and in connection with subdivision 6 of section 6850, Ballinger's Ann. Codes & St., which provides that the indictment is sufficient if the act or omission charged as a crime is clearly and distinctly set forth in ordinary and concise language, without repetition, and in such a manner as to enable a person of common understanding to know what is intended. All of the requirements summed up are for the purpose, and only for the purpose, of insuring to the accused the benefit of such provision, viz., that he shall know what is intended, so that he may intelligently prepare his defense. This provision of the Code is the all-important consideration, and all the other provisions enumerated are simply for the purpose of securing this one. This is the test of the fairness and efficiency of the information as one of the prescribed processes in the administration of justice; and, subjected to this test, we think the information in this case is sufficient, and that the accused was notified that he was called upon to answer to the charge of murdering Lottie Brace.

In answer to the suggestion that it does not appear from the information that the deceased, Lottie Brace, died within a year and a day from the infliction of the wounds mentioned, we think the expression 'then and there languished, and languishing died,' relates back to the time the wounds were inflicted, and that the words 'then and there' qualify the word 'died,' as well as the word 'languished.' But, in any event, the phraseology criticised is not material, for the information informs the accused that the mortal wounds from which Lottie Brace died were inflicted on the 5th day of November, 1902, and the information is dated on the 8th day of November, 1902, three days after. So that it must necessarily follow that the death occurred within three days from the infliction of the wounds. The information, in all respects, seems to be sufficient to sustain the judgment.

This disposes of the...