State v. Dreher
| Decision Date | 19 January 1897 |
| Citation | 38 S.W. 567,137 Mo. 11 |
| Parties | The State v. Dreher, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from St. Louis Criminal Court. -- Hon. Thomas B. Harvey Judge.
Affirmed.
Lee Meriwether for appellant.
(1) The record shows that the management of the case in the trial court by appellant's attorney was so totally lacking in care and skill that he did not have that fair trial which the constitution guaranties and to which of right he is entitled. White v. Washington, 1 Barnes, 411; Godefroy v Dalton, 6 Bing. 460; Reece v. Rigby, 4 B. & Ald. 202; Sharp v. Mayor, 31 Barb. 578. (2) The instruction given by the court that one may be partially insane and yet be responsible for criminal acts is contrary to reason and medical science and improper because calculated to mislead the jury. (3) Upon the record in this case grave doubt as to appellant's sanity must assuredly arise; it would be a blot upon the fair fame of Missouri to execute a lunatic, merely because his counsel failed to assort his testimony and present his case to the state's expert witnesses, and to the jury. Because of this, and in the name of humanity, we ask the court to give the appellant the benefit of the doubt and remand the case for a new trial.
R. F Walker, attorney general, and C. O. Bishop for the state.
(1) The indictment is sufficient in all respects, following the most approved precedents, and there is no error apparent in the record. (2) The verdict is fully sustained by the evidence; the plea of insanity admitted the killing (State v. Pagels, 92 Mo. 300), and the evidence abundantly established both the fact of the killing and the fact that there was no provocation whatever to reduce the grade of homicide. State v. Kotovsky, 74 Mo. 247. The fullest latitude was given the appellant in supporting his plea by testimony. He does not claim in his motion for new trial that any testimony offered by him was excluded; nor (as will be hereafter seen) was any incompetent testimony admitted against him. The question of his insanity was fairly submitted to the jury for their finding, and although there was testimony from many sources and from a "cloud of witnesses" that appellant for several years before the homicide was eccentric, peculiar, erratic and perhaps diseased in mind, that testimony did not show that he was so diseased in mind that he did not know right from wrong and the consequences of his acts; and the verdict, upon the facts, should not be disturbed. State v. Schaefer, 116 Mo. 96. (3) There is nothing in the record, save the bare statement in the motion for new trial, to show that the prosecuting officer was guilty of the slightest misconduct. (4) The instructions given by the court of its own motion were correct in every particular and fully declared all the law of the case. They are a rescript of those in former cases which have been approved by this court. State v. Redemeier, 71 Mo. 173; State v. Pagels, 92 Mo. 300; State v. Schaefer, 116 Mo. 96. (5) The instruction refused has already been substantially given by the court of its own motion. and State v. Pagels, 92 Mo. 300. (6) A careful examination of the voluminous record in this cause fails to show that the court admitted any illegal or incompetent testimony against the appellant.
The defendant was indicted at the May term, 1894, of the St. Louis criminal court for the murder of Bertha Hunicke on January 29, 1894.
At the same term it was suggested to the court that he was at that time insane and a jury was impaneled to try his insanity. Their finding was that he had become insane since the killing, and was then insane. Thereupon the criminal court ordered him transferred to the city insane asylum, until he should become sane. At the May term, 1895, the superintendent of the asylum notified the court that he had recovered and another jury was impaneled to try his sanity and after a hearing they found him to be sane. The cause was thereupon docketed and set down for trial at the January term, 1896. At that term defendant was duly arraigned but stood mute and the plea of "not guilty" was ordered to be entered in his behalf and thereupon, both sides announcing ready, a jury was impaneled, the cause heard and defendant convicted of murder in the first degree. At the March term, 1896, he was sentenced to be hanged, from which he appeals.
The killing was established and conceded. The defense was insanity.
The deceased, Bertha Hunicke, was a young married woman; her home was in Pacific, Missouri, but her husband had met with an accident, whereby he became crippled and was unable to support her, so she came to St. Louis and engaged as a domestic. At the time of her death she was temporarily residing with her married sister, Mrs. Agnes Hanson, at 821 Madison street. Appellant was clerking in a retail grocery store in the neighborhood and became acquainted with deceased through her coming to the store to purchase family supplies. He grew enamored of her, paid her assiduous attention, urged her to obtain a divorce from her husband and to marry him. At first she treated his attentions pleasantly, then with indifference, afterward with disdain and at length protested against them and repelled him; and he was urged to keep away from the house where she was staying. He made her some presents of jewelry, which she returned to him. On Saturday, January 27, 1894, he came to the house in the evening to see her, and tendered her a box of candy which she refused. After some conversation she asked him to go away and let her alone and not bother her; and he said to her, "Never mind, Bertha, perhaps we will stand a chance to die together," to which she answered, "Now you have threatened my life in front of Emma; I have a witness," referring to a lady friend present, Mrs. Littreal.
On Monday afternoon, January 29, 1894, about 4 o'clock, he came to the house again and went into Mrs. Hanson's bedroom, where her three children were. Mrs. Hanson and Mrs. Littreal were in the kitchen preparing supper. Shortly afterward Mrs. Hunicke came in and finding appellant there seemed to be angry about it. In a few minutes the two women in the kitchen heard three shots fired, and running to the bedroom saw deceased standing against the wall holding her head in her hands, and appellant lying on the floor with a smoking revolver in his hand and blood flowing from his head. Deceased exclaimed, "Charley shot me!" Mrs. Hanson ran out on the street for an officer and Mrs. Littreal took up the baby from the bed and returned to the kitchen; then two more shots were heard; Mrs. Hanson ran back to the room, and found deceased lying across the doorsill just dying; appellant partly rose from the floor, leaning on his arm and pointing the pistol at deceased; Mrs. Hanson snatched the weapon from his hand and tossed it upon the bed. He rose to his feet, and she asked him, "Why did you murder my sister?" He replied, "I shot her," and staggered from the room. Mrs. Littreal, after hearing the last two shots, started back to the room and met appellant coming toward her with a hatchet in his hand with which he was striking himself on the head. Affrighted, she turned and ran back with the baby into the closet in the rear and fastened the door; she heard him come down the steps behind her, climb over the closet and a fence back of it. After he was gone, she returned to the bedroom and found Mrs. Hunicke dead.
A few minutes after the shooting some officers appeared on the scene, among them Captain Kiely of the metropolitan police force, who started in pursuit of appellant, and found him about a block from the house, on the rear of a cooper shop; as he advanced toward appellant, the latter started toward the back door, but the captain ordered him to halt, and, drawing his revolver, took him into custody. The prisoner was taken first to the scene of the homicide, where he asked permission to kiss the corpse, and thence to the police station. In answer to the captain's query as to why he had shot the woman, he replied, "Well, a little trouble; a little jealousy, that's all." He was found to be seriously injured, and was sent to the city hospital for treatment, where he was examined by the surgeon in charge. He had a gunshot wound of the head -- the skull was partially fractured, and some of the bone was removed with one of the bullets. About four weeks afterward he was transferred to the jail.
The autopsy of deceased disclosed that she had a gunshot wound of the head situated upon the left side immediately above the ear; the bullet entered the temporal bone ranging inward and slightly downward, passed through the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere and was embedded in the base of the brain, cutting the meningeal artery, suffusing the cranial cavity with blood, and causing certain and almost instantaneous death.
The testimony on the part of the appellant was in support of the plea of insanity, and tended to show that he had received sundry injuries to his head in his childhood; had had spasms of some kind in early infancy; had been sunstruck once upon a time; had practiced a secret...
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