State v. Coleman

• Decision Date: 01 March 1884
• Parties: STATE v. COLEMAN.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

20 S.C. 441

STATE

v.COLEMAN.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Mar. 1st, 1884.

1. The examination of a juror on his voire dire should properly be conducted by the court.

2. It is for the Circuit judge to decide whether a juror is indifferent or not. In this case, the judge did not abuse his discretion in permitting to be sworn a juror, who stated on his voire dire that he had read the newspaper accounts of the crime-had neither formed nor expressed any opinion of the guilt or innocence of the prisoner at the bar, but had said that “any man who commits such a crime should be hanged,” and, further, “that a man committing so shocking a crime as this was reported to be, did not deserve a trial by jury.”

3. The trial-judge refused to permit defendant's counsel, in a murder trial, to read to an expert what had been said by a physician proved to be high authority on the subject of transitoria mania, as found in a medical journal, and then to ask such witness whether he concurred in those views, but counsel was permitted to frame from such publication questions for the witness as to his own opinions, and also to read to the jury at pleasure from standard authors upon medical jurisprudence. Held, that there was no error in the judge's ruling.

4. It is not proper to ask physician-experts their opinion of the prisoner's sanity from the testimony given in the case on trial, but they may be asked their views generally, or with reference to a similar case hypothetically stated.

5. The judge refused to charge the jury “that if they believe that the prisoner had no motive for killing the deceased, as shown by words or deeds previous or subsequent to the act, then they must acquit him on the ground of want of criminal intent,” and instead charged “that the intent must exist and be shown to exist, but the motive may not be discovered; the absence of a motive revealed is a circumstance to be duly considered in weighing the question of guilt.” Held, that in this there was no error.

6. The judge refused to charge the jury “that it is the duty of the State to prove that the prisoner was of sound mind when he committed the act, and if, from the evidence, the defense create a reasonable doubt about the prisoner being sane, you must give the prisoner the benefit of that doubt,” but on the contrary charged “that the burden of proving soundness of mind is not, in the first instance, on the State; it is a defense, and if established, will prevail when interposed by defendant; the jury must be satisfied of defendant's sanity before they can convict; the defendant is entitled to be acquitted if reasonable doubt of his capacity to commit crime is raised in the minds of the jury, but that the doubt to be raised in favor of the prisoner must be a serious, well-founded, substantial doubt.” Held, that in this there was no error.

7. The Circuit judge is authorized to send to the asylum any person who, upon trial before him, proves to be of unsound mind, but he is not required to do so.

8. Where insanity is the defense, the judge did not err in instructing the jury that if a reasonable doubt is raised in their mind as to defendant's capacity to commit crime, their verdict must be “not guilty,” but not necessarily “by reason of insanity.”

9. The mere plea of insanity does not render the atrocity of the deed evidence of the insanity of the perpetrator.

Before HUDSON, J., Richland, April, 1883.

This was an indictment against James Coleman for the murder of Sarah Willis, in the city of Columbia, on December 28th, 1882. The facts of the case are thus reported by the presiding judge:

The testimony disclosed the fact that the defendant was the husband of a sister of Sarah Willis; that he was in the habit of visiting the house of Sarah, and was, by her and her husband, received with the freedom and confidence usually accorded to a brother-in-law. With Sarah there lived an unmarried sister, by name Mattie Faust, a young and comely, bright-colored woman. On December 28th last, Sarah's husband was absent on a visit to relatives in the county of Barnwell. On the evening of that day the defendant called at her house, in the yard of Professor Davis of the South Carolina college, just as Sarah and her sister were about to go out to attend a fair in the city. The defendant was kindly welcomed, and gladly requested to remain and care for the house during the absence of Sarah and her sister, which he consented to do.

They were at the fair until after midnight, and on returning found Coleman awaiting them. The unmarried sister, feeling fatigued, retired to bed, leaving Sarah and the defendant sitting by the fire, she having slipped off her shoes and unbuttoned her dress. The sleep of Mattie Faust was so profound that the noise which must have attended the killing of her sister did not awake her. About two or three o'clock A. M. she was aroused from sleep by finding a man in bed with her. She asked who it was, and the reply was, “It is Tom Brown.” At this she cried aloud for her sister, when he seized her by the throat and threatened to kill her if she made further noise. She became passive, and he had connection with her. Having discovered that it was the defendant, she inquired for her sister, and was told that she was in the adjoining room with a man. Mattie attempted several times to quit the bed to find her sister, but he prevented her doing so, and several times himself arose and stepped out the door, when she could hear him scraping on the ground. The house had two rooms, each of which was entered from a door opening on the yard. On returning to the bed the defendant betrayed restlessness and said that he felt as if he was going to be hanged, and that she, Mattie, would be the cause of it.

Time passed on in this way until about dawn, when Coleman having again arisen and stepped out, Mattie sprang out of the house and saw him rapidly retreating. Looking into the next room through a window she saw her sister lying on the floor dead. The alarm was given, and upon the arrival of others the shocking scene was revealed. From the pool of blood in the room where Mattie slept, and the wounds upon the head of deceased, it was evident that with an axe or hatchet the defendant had cut Sarah down in the presence of the sleeping sister, and had then dragged the dead body into the yard, and thence along the ground to the next door of the house, and then lifted or dragged it into the adjoining room and there left it. Her head was deeply cut in several places. Having done this horrid deed, fiend-like, he repaired to the bed of Mattie and had carnal knowledge of her forcibly and against her will, all stained with the blood of his innocent victim, whom, in all probability, he slew in cold blood for refusing to prostitute herself to his brutal lust.

Such is a brief narrative of this revolting homicide. So clear and convincing was the proof that the defendant after arrest and imprisonment did not, could not deny it, but freely and voluntarily confessed it, and said that he had no excuse for the act, except that he was instigated thereto by the devil. The attorney for the prisoner very prudently made no effort to deny nor disprove the fact of the killing, nor the circumstances attending it; but relied on the defense of transitory or temporary insanity. To establish this, he placed witnesses on the stand, including the parents and relatives of the defendant, who gave a history of his ills and ailments from childhood up to manhood.

The purport of this testimony was that James had, in boyhood, been at times affected with a strange hurting in his head, when he would pull his hair and complain of something moving in his head. He would, at times, awake at night with a scream, as if in a nightmare, and be much frightened. He talked in his sleep, and often in the daytime would talk to himself. At times he walked in his sleep. While a youth, he once lived at a Mr. McTeer's in Hampton county, when he became ill, and for a week was, in the opinion of Mr. McTeer, not in a sound state of mind. At school he was taciturn, and not inclined to play with the other children; but he learned as other children, and kept well up with his classes. On one occasion, during his career, he manifested a desire to get hold of a gun, to kill either himself or some one else. Such was the current of testimony regarding the defendant's mental condition and manifestations, running through a period of some years from boyhood to manhood. He is apparently twenty-four or twenty-five years of age.

Several eminent medical experts were examined by the defense upon the subject of insanity in general, and particularly transitory insanity. They were present throughout the trial, and heard all the testimony for the State and the defense, and gave the trial, in its progress from beginning to end, very close attention, and closely observed the defendant. These experts are Drs. Trezevant, Taylor, Talley, Green and Heinitsh. All these to whom the question was put very promptly stated that they could discover nothing in all the testimony indicating that the defendant was subject to transitory insanity, and without hesitation gave it as their opinion that at the time he committed the homicide he was sane and morally responsible. The jury, with little hesitation, arrived at the same conclusion, and found the defendant guilty. I have no hesitation in saying that I fully concur in the correctness of the verdict, as the defendant signally failed to make out his defense of insanity.

Other matters are stated in the opinion of this court.

Mr. D. A. Straker, for appellant.

The juror should have been excluded. Hamilton's Metaphysics, 133, 424; Reid, 331, 337; 74 Pa. 458;Thomp. & Mer. Jur., §§ 214-217; Whart. Cr. L., § 2981; Burr Tr., vol. I., p. 416; 4 Wend. 241;1 Johns. 316; 12 Geo. 444; Prof. Jury Tr., §§ 176, 181, 183. Error in the use of discretion by the Circuit judge is reviewable. 16 S. C. 460;Rap. & Law, L....