State v. Dodson
| Decision Date | 11 June 1930 |
| Docket Number | 30235 |
| Citation | 29 S.W.2d 60 |
| Parties | STATE v. DODSON |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Stratton Shartel, Atty. Gen., and Ray Weightman, Asst. Atty Gen., for the State.
In the circuit court of Butler county, defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree for the killing of John Crisp and was duly sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. She appeals.
The state's evidence shows, in substance, the following: Defendant and Crisp lived in Poplar Bluff, where the homicide occurred. They were apparently on friendly terms and had been for some time. About 7:30 p. m. on April 18, 1929, Crisp called at the home of Lonnie Cruse and inquired for Cruse, saying that 'Bertha,' the defendant, wanted to see him. Learning that Cruse was at home, Crisp went back to get defendant, who was then at the home of one Thaxton across the street, and they returned to Cruse's house together. At that time Cruse and his wife and his brother were sitting on the porch. Crisp came upon the porch and sat down, defendant remaining standing near by. Defendant asked Mrs. Cruse where she would be next day at 10 o'clock, receiving the reply that she would be at home. Defendant then turned to Lonnie Cruse and asked: 'What are you going to swear to in the case against my brother?' To which Cruse replied: 'Nothing, unless I am compelled to.' She then asked: 'What are you trying to do, pen my brother?' Cruse replied: 'No.' She then requested Cruse to come off the porch and talk to her, which he declined to do, whereupon she shot at him with a revolver, wounding him slightly. Crisp, at that moment, was sitting on the porch, but when the shot was fired he immediately jumped up and ran out into the street, stopping under or near an electric light. Defendant followed him and, when within about two steps of him, shot him. The bullet passed through his body, inflicting a wound from which he died the next day. There was evidence indicating that the bullet struck him in the back. He ran around a corner, disappearing from the sight of the witnesses, and later was taken to a hospital. Cruse testified that after shooting Crisp defendant 'walked down to the electric light, fired another shot, broke the pistol down and put another shell in the pistol and went on down the street.'
Neither Cruse nor his wife, the only eyewitnesses of the shooting who testified, saw Crisp 'do anything' to or make any movement toward defendant immediately before she shot him. There were no words spoken between Crisp and defendant at the Cruse home and, if any were spoken between them at the scene of the shooting, the witnesses did not hear them.
Defendant was arrested that evening shortly after the shooting at her brother's home about two blocks from the Cruse home. The arresting officer found her sitting on the front steps with a revolver in her hand, and when he approached she said to him: 'I shot the God-damned son of a bitch and if you want me you can come and get me.' The officer testified that there were at least three exploded shells in the revolver and he thought two loaded ones. It was shown that defendant had a revolver in her possession at the Thaxton home just before going to the Cruse home with Crisp, also earlier in the evening when she and Crisp were both at her brother's home. There was no showing that there had been a quarrel or any ill feeling between defendant and deceased.
Defendant, testifying in her own behalf, claimed that the shooting was accidental; that she and Crisp had never had any trouble or ill feeling; that the revolver belonged to Crisp, who had given it to her that afternoon while they were at her bother's home; that she had no intention of shooting deceased and did not intentionally shot him or intentionally discharge the revolver. Asked by her counsel to explain in her own words what happened, she testified: (The few words referred to were with Lonnie Cruse) She said she did not have her finger on the trigger. Asked on cross-examination whether she had said anything to Crisp, she answered: 'I told him there was the gun.' She said he told her to throw the gun down, but she did not do so; that he was then walking in front of her, 'kindly sideways.' She was not asked about and did not deny making the statement to the officer who arrested her, as testified to by him.
Defendant called her brother and his wife as witnesses, but their testimony did not bear upon the events immediately connected with the shooting.
The state in rebuttal, by way of impeachment, proved that the reputations of defendant and her witnesses for morality were bad, and it was brought out on cross-examination that those of its own principal witnesses were no better. They all had unsavory police court records.
The court, by appropriate instructions, submitted the case to the jury on murder in the first and second degrees, with proper instructions on presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt, and also an instruction directing acquittal if the jury found that the pistol had been discharged accidentally, resulting in deceased's death, without intent on defendants part to discharge it. The court refused to instruct on manslaughter.
Defendant, though represented by counsel at the trial, has filed no brief in this court, hence we are left to examine such alleged errors as are sufficiently assigned in her motion for new trial without the aid of a brief in her behalf.
I. The information is challenged in general terms as not stating facts sufficient to charge defendant with any crime. It charges murder in the first degree in the form that has been many times approved by this court and is sufficient. It is needless to set it out herein.
II. It is alleged...
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