State v. Davis

• Citation: 226 Mo. 493,126 S.W. 470
• Parties: STATE v. DAVIS.
• Decision Date: 15 March 1910
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

126 S.W. 470

226 Mo. 493

STATE v. DAVIS.

Supreme Court of Missouri. Division No. 2.

March 15, 1910.

1. CRIMINAL LAW (§ 781) — INSTRUCTIONS — CONFESSION.

An instruction authorizing the jury to consider defendant's verbal or written statements introduced in evidence with all the facts and circumstances proven, that such statements are presumed to be true because against defendant,

but that the jury was not bound to believe anything said by defendant in his own behalf which might be treated as true or false as the jury might believe it, when considered with the other circumstances of the case, was correct.

2. HOMICIDE (§ 233) — MOTIVE — NECESSITY OF SHOWING.

The state, in a prosecution for homicide, is not bound to show a particular motive, though the fact of motive or the absence of motive is an important inquiry.

3. HOMICIDE (§ 14) — "DELIBERATELY."

The word "deliberately," as used in the law of homicide, does not mean brooded over or reflected on for any particular time, but is a conscious purpose to kill, formed in a cool state of blood, and not under violent passion suddenly aroused by some real or supposed grievance.

4. HOMICIDE (§ 253) — FIRST-DEGREE MURDER — EVIDENCE.

In a prosecution for homicide, evidence held to sustain a conviction of murder in the first degree.

Appeal from Criminal Court, Jackson County; Ralph S. Latshaw, Judge.

Robert W. Davis was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.

R. W. Goldsby and James Peck, for appellant. E. W. Major, Atty. Gen., and Jno. M. Atkinson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

GANTT, J.

On December 8, 1908, an information duly verified was filed in the criminal court of Jackson county charging the defendant with murder in the first degree of Harry H. Evans on November 14, 1908. The information was in due and approved form, and it is therefore unnecessary to set it forth at length. Afterwards on the 12th of December, 1908, the defendant, being in custody, was duly arraigned and entered his plea of not guilty; the court at the same time having assigned him counsel. The cause was then continued from time to time until the 28th of December, 1908, when it came on for trial before a jury and resulted in a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree and assessing the punishment at death. A motion for new trial was duly filed, heard, and overruled, and the defendant sentenced in accordance with the verdict. From that judgment he has appealed to this court.

The defendant is not represented in this court by counsel. The facts disclosed by the record are substantially these: Harry H. Evans, the deceased, was a boy just past 17 years of age, at the date of his death, and lived with his father at No. 2923 Mersington street, Kansas City. The father of the deceased was engaged in the stone quarry business in Kansas City, and Harry drove a team for his father and made collections for him. On Saturday evening, November 14, 1908, at about 7 o'clock, the deceased and a brother by the name of John left their home and went to a number of stores in the neighborhood. At one of the stores John paid a small bill that he owed for tobacco. When the deceased left home that evening, he was wearing a pair of overalls over his dress pants and a heavy coat of corduroy or ducking, and a pair of heavy shoes. He and his brother met the defendant, Davis, at Twenty-Seventh and Cleveland streets at 9:30 o'clock that evening. The boys informed the defendant that they were going down town to have their shoes mended, whereupon the defendant, who had a bucket of beer, invited them to go with him to his home, and he would go with them after leaving the beer. Deceased accepted the invitation, but John, his brother, declined it. This was the last time the deceased was seen alive by any member of his family. The evidence tends to show that the defendant and the Evans family were on friendly terms, and that he often visited the Evans brothers. Defendant is a young man about 23 years of age at the time of the trial. The body of the deceased was found in a manhole on the following Sunday morning about 9 o'clock at Twenty-Ninth and Monroe streets with his skull crushed and one of the main arteries of his neck severed by a knife. He had on his gloves, which were strapped around his wrists. His pocketknife was found in the pocket of his underpants. Several pools of blood were found, some three blocks away, some two and some one from where the body was found. Appellant was arrested on the day the body of the deceased was found, and thereafter made three written statements.

The first statement was as follows:

"First Statement. Metropolitan Police Department. Kansas City, Missouri, Nov. 18, 1908. My name is Robert Davis. I live at 1919 Myrtle. I live with my mother, father and brother and sisters. I am 22 years old. The last work I done was for Mr. John Crow in his rock quarry at Twenty-Eighth and Cleveland. Saturday night, November 14th, him (Harry Evans) and his brother John was up on Twenty-Seventh and Cleveland, and I came along and met them. John, he first said to me, he said, `You're going to town?' `Yes, when I take this beer home,' I said. `Well, then,' I said, `run down with me. It won't take long.' Then John he complained of being tired, and says, `I'll wait here. You go down with him, Harry.' Harry he went on with me back to my house and waited there a few minutes till I changed clothes. Then we started talking about going down on Third and Broadway. We was going to meet John. Harry, he did not want to go down on the Row, but wanted to go to a chitlin supper upon Twenty-Eighth and Jackson at Mrs. Colley's, and I wanted to go down there. He objected to going down there, and one word brought on another, and so he jerked out his knife, and I slapped him in the face. I didn't hit him with my fist, for if I had I would have knocked him unconscious, for I got strength you know. When I hit him I knocked him down. He got up with the knife and tried to open it as he got up, and I jumped back to let him open it, and then I run into him and clinched him and took the knife away from him. Then I cut at him from right to left. Then I jabbed back at him from left to right and cut him about the neck somewhere, I don't know exactly where. I don't remember of cutting him more than once, but I might have cut him the first time I swung at him. When I jabbed at him the second time and cut him, he screamed, and the people next door came out on the porch; that is, the white people in that little white house with green trimming on it come out on their porch. When he screamed he fell down, and I pulled him over there in the weeds, and then I walked down the road north a little ways and come back and got a rock and knocked him in the head. When I walked away after cutting him, I throwed the knife in the creek. Right after I hit him in the head with the rock, I throwed the rock over towards that box elder tree on the side of the branch. I then went north on Myrtle to Twenty-Ninth, and went angling across to Twenty-Eighth and Cleveland, and then north on Cleveland to Twenty-Seventh. Then I walked west on Twenty-Seventh to Indiana avenue and took the Indiana avenue car north and came down to Eighteenth and Paseo. I got off then and went to the Chicago Loan Office and got my overcoat, which I had pawned there for $2. I paid him $2.50. Then I walked west on Eighteenth to Troost and got a Vine street or Minnesota car and rode to Fifth and Main and went to Costello's saloon. Then I went to Third and Broadway. Then I went up and got on Indiana avenue car at Fifth and Delaware and rode to Twenty-Seventh and Indiana and transferred to Twenty-Seventh car and rode to Jackson avenue, the end of the line, and then I went to Mrs. Colley's. I stayed there until about 1:25. Then I went home. I went south on Jackson to Twenty-Ninth, west on Twenty-Ninth to Myrtle, and on down Myrtle home. I went home and pulled off my overcoat and came down and went to where Harry was and tried to hide him to keep any one from seeing him, that is, I carried him west across the pasture to the manhole at Twenty-Ninth and Monroe and threw him in there. I only stopped once on the way, and that was in the pasture about Mersington. After I dumped him in the manhole, I went home and took off all of my clothes except my underclothes and laid down beside John and slept some. When I got home after dumping the body in the sewer, I laid down, and then got up and went to the toilet, and then came back and laid down and went to sleep. Then when I woke up I looked out the window. I thought it had snowed. Then I laid down, and pretty soon I looked out again. I thought I heard some one whistle. Then I laid down again. John asked me both times I looked out the window what I was looking for, and I told him what I told you. I didn't sleep any more after that, and pretty soon I got up and went downstairs and got some water and brought it upstairs and put it on the stove, and then I started a fire in the stove. I put in some paper first, then put in the drawers I wore Saturday night when I killed Harry Evans. Then I put in a pair of ragged pants I had worn recently, and then I put in four or five pieces of wood and the socks I wore when I killed Harry. Then I dressed and came downstairs. Also when I built the fire I put in and burned an old undershirt that I used to wash the blood off my pants with, and I put an old shirt in the fire. I didn't wear none of them the night I killed Harry. I have got on the coat and pants I wore when I killed Harry, and I have got on the same undershirt, but the drawers and socks I burned. When I built the fire I heated some water and washed and dressed and came downstairs. I washed the blood off of my pants before I came downstairs. I did not get any blood on my coat, vest, or shirt. When I went downstairs, I did not remember much what I done, for I didn't stay there very long. When I come downstairs, Bob ...