State v. Drummond
| Decision Date | 17 September 1912 |
| Citation | 126 P. 541,70 Wash. 260 |
| Parties | STATE v. DRUMMOND. |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, Stevens County; D. H. Carey Judge.
Elmer Drummond was convicted of murder in the second degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.
J. A. Rochford, of Colville, Albert I. Kulzer, of Valley, and Robertson & Miller and T. J. Corkery, all of Spokane, for appellant.
Howard W. Stull and Herman T. Wentz, both of Colville, for the State.
Elmer Drummond, on June 10, 1911, shot and killed William E. Flynt in Stevens county. He and two other defendants were charged by information with the crime of murder in the first degree. Defendant, Elmer Drummond, was tried separately, and was convicted of murder in the second degree. He appeals from the judgment pronounced upon the verdict of a jury.
Several errors are alleged, which are argued in the briefs under four different points, which we shall notice in their order. It is first claimed that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict. We have carefully read the evidence, which shows without dispute that the appellant, on the morning of June 10, 1911, between the hours of 10 and 11 o'clock, shot and killed the deceased; that appellant, on the day before the killing, had some difficulty with the deceased over an obstruction which appellant and his brother had placed in a road. The deceased compelled the appellant to assist in removing this obstruction. On the day of the killing, the deceased was, with a horse, dragging some poles from a slashing near the line which divided the farms of the deceased and of the appellant's father. At about 10 o'clock, the deceased dragged a load of poles down to his house and returned for another load. After he had been gone a short time, his wife saw the horse come back without the deceased. Mrs. Flynt then went up the road and found her husband lying in the road dead, about 200 yards from the house, with a bullet hole in his breast. No tracks were visible beyond the body. Some 96 steps beyond the body, an empty cartridge was found near the road, and footprints of three different persons led away from near that point. The appellant, soon after 11 o'clock a. m. of that day, told a neighbor, living about a mile from the scene of the shooting, that he (appellant) had had some trouble with Mr. Flynt and had gotten the better of him, and advised the neighbor to go up there; that he might be needed. The appellant then went to the town of Chewelah, and found an officer, to whom he stated that he had shot Mr. Flynt, and gave himself into the custody of the officer.
No eyewitness to the shooting was called by the state. The fact of the quarrel on the day before, the fact that no footprints were found near the body, the admission of the appellant that he had done the shooting, the absence of blood stains on the road, except one small spot near the body of the deceased the fact that a large pool of blood was found where the deceased lay, the fact that the wound was a mortal wound, on account of which the deceased could not have gone 96 steps after he received the wound, the fact that the light straw hat which deceased wore was found near his head where the body lay, and the fact that the footprints of three different persons led away from the point where the empty cartridge was found, were relied upon by the state to show that the deceased had been waylaid and cruelly murdered. These circumstances, no doubt, tended to prove malice and premeditation. They were therefore sufficient to go to the jury. All three defendants testified in substance, that Mr. Flynt first attacked them; that while Mr. Flynt was dashing toward the appellant in an angry and threatening...
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... ... defendant ( State v. Payne, 10 Wash. 545, 39 P. 157; ... State v. Melvern, 32 Wash. 7, 72 P. 489; State ... v. Clark, 58 Wash. 128, 107 P. 1047; State v ... Totten, 67 Wash. 192, 121 P. 70; State v ... Drummond, 70 Wash. 260, 126 P. 541; State v ... Duncan, 101 Wash. 542, 172 P. 915), the defendant was ... not entitled to have the question of his guilt or innocence ... of manslaughter submitted to the jury. The following homicide ... cases decided by this court, wherein the ... ...
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