State v. Gibbs
| Decision Date | 31 May 1916 |
| Docket Number | No. 19390.,19390. |
| Citation | 186 S.W. 986 |
| Parties | STATE v. GIBBS. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Stoddard County; W. S. C. Walker, Judge.
R. S. Gibbs was convicted of manslaughter, and from a judgment of conviction and an order denying a new trial, he appeals. Affirmed.
J. W. Farris and Fort & Green, all of Bloomfield, for appellant. John T. Barker, Atty. Gen., and W. T. Rutherford, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Defendant was charged in an information filed in the circuit court of Stoddard county with murder in the first degree. Upon a trial he was convicted of manslaughter in the fourth degree, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. From this judgment he appeals.
The defendant and the deceased, named Frank Surface, were tenant farmers living in the same neighborhood. Deceased had, under what conditions it is not shown, rented the farm tenanted by the defendant, which compelled the removal of the latter. He was reluctant to leave the premises, and delayed removing therefrom. Bad feeling was engendered between them, and there is evidence of threats of violence by each against the other. Before defendant had removed all of his furniture from the house, and during his absence, deceased gained access to same and placed a sack of clover seed therein which he contemplated sowing. The morning before the difficulty which resulted in the defendant stabbing the deceased, the latter went to the house defendant was vacating. He found the defendant loading into a wagon the last of his furniture. They began to quarrel, and in the scuffle which ensued defendant stabbed the deceased in the abdomen with a pocketknife, from which wounds he died the succeeding day. The only witness who testified as to the difficulty, aside from the defendant, was one Charles Degan, who was present, assisting the defendant in the removal. He states, in effect, excluding the profanity and personal abuse used by the parties, that after some sharp words the deceased picked up an ax handle and struck at the defendant; that the latter backed out of the way, when they clinched, and in the scuffle that ensued the defendant fell with deceased on top of him; that deceased hit the defendant several times with his fist while they were down, and when they got up defendant cut the deceased with his knife, and the deceased threw down the ax handle, loosened his hold on defendant, and started away, saying, "I'll go and get my gun and kill you." The defendant's testimony is to the same effect. Deceased, on reaching his son's house, who lived in the neighborhood, asked the latter to send for a doctor, adding that "he had went through with several hard customers, but this time he had to go." To a justice of the peace who took his statement a short time before his death he said he could not get well, but if he did he would spend what he had in prosecuting the defendant. Another witness named Harvey talked to the deceased about an hour before he died, and he told the witness he thought he would die. Other witnesses testified that in conversations with deceased immediately after the difficulty, and on the day succeeding same, a short time before his death, he declared his belief in his impending dissolution — not in this language but its equivalent. In addition to the preliminary statement as to his condition made by deceased to the justice of the peace, he said:
At the close of this statement deceased also said "he could not get well." There was testimony pro and con concerning the reputation of deceased as a quarrelsome and overbearing man. Instructions were given on murder in the first and second degrees and manslaughter in the fourth degree. Errors alleged to have been committed by the trial court, preserved in the motion for a new trial, are general in their nature, and are directed against the admission and exclusion of evidence, and the giving and refusing of instructions. There is also an exception consisting of a specific assignment of error as to the admission in evidence of the dying declarations of the deceased on the ground it did not appear therefrom he had abandoned all hope of recovery at the time the declarations were made, and hence they were not admissible. Another ground urged for reversal is the alleged discovery since the trial of material evidence on behalf of defendant. We have not been favored with a brief by counsel for defendant.
I. Instructions. — It is the province of this court to review errors wherein it is shown that the defendant has suffered...
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State v. Hughes
...Wharton's Criminal Evidence, p. 852, sec. 530; State v. Crone, 209 Mo. 316, 108 S.W. 555; State v. Zorn, 202 Mo. 12, 100 S.W. 591; State v. Bibbs, 186 S.W. 986; State v. Thomas, 180 S.W. 869; State Flinn, 96 S.W.2d 506; State v. Evans, 124 Mo. 397, 28 S.W. 8; State v. Garth, 164 Mo. 553; 65......
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State v. Hughes, 35909.
...Criminal Evidence, p. 852, sec. 530; State v. Crone, 209 Mo. 316, 108 S.W. 555; State v. Zorn, 202 Mo. 12, 100 S.W. 591; State v. Bibbs, 186 S.W. 986; State v. Thomas, 180 S.W. 869; State v. Flinn, 96 S.W. (2d) 506; State v. Evans, 124 Mo. 397, 28 S.W. 8; State v. Garth, 164 Mo. 553; 65 S.W......
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State v. McGinnis
...and testified at the trial, and there is nothing to show why this evidence was not available at the time the trial was had. State v. Gibbs, 186 S.W. 986; State Clark, 203 S.W. 627; State v. Emmons, 225 S.W. 894; State v. Hayden, 190 S.W. 311; State v. Arnett, 210 S.W. 82. (3) The verdict of......
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State v. Stewart
...was admissible as a dying declaration. State v. Kilgore, 70 Mo. 546; State v. Chambers, 87 Mo. 406; State v. Nelson, 101 Mo. 464; State v. Gibbs, 186 S.W. 986. P. J. Faris, J., concurs; Blair and Graves, JJ., concur in Paragraphs I, III, IV and VI, and the result; Walker, J., dissents in a ......