State v. Harris

• Decision Date: 07 April 1896
• Citation: 97 Iowa 407,66 N.W. 728
• Parties: STATE v. HARRIS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

97 Iowa 407

66 N.W. 728

STATE

v.HARRIS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 7, 1896.

Appeal from district court, Lee county; A. J. McCary, Judge.

The defendant was convicted of the crime of robbery, and from the judgment which required him to be imprisoned in the state penitentiary at Ft. Madison at hard labor for the term of three years, and to pay the costs, he appeals. AffirmedWatson & Weber, for appellant.

Milton Remley, Atty. Gen., for the State.

ROBINSON, J.

The indictment charges that the robbery alleged was committed on the 9th day of November, 1894, by striking and putting in fear one Arnold Treuthardt, and by stealing from his person and carrying away a gold watch and chain of the value of $20. Treuthardt testified that in the evening of the day specified he was hit upon the back of his head by a person unknown to him, and that a watch and between six and eight dollars in money were taken from him. No one saw the robbery, and the evidence upon which the defendant was convicted was circumstantial. The watch was in his possession in the morning next following the robbery, and a few days later he transferred it to one Kennedy. He told different and conflicting stories in regard to the ownership of the watch and the source from which he obtained it. He claimed on the trial that he received it from Harry Marsh the morning of November 10th, and there is evidence which tends to corroborate this claim, although it was denied by Marsh.

1. The first instruction to the jury given by the court set out the offense charged by the indictment. The second instruction is as follows: “(2) To this charge the defendant pleads not guilty. This plea puts in issue every material fact involved in the crime charged, and before you can convict the defendant the state must establish beyond a reasonable doubt the guilt of the defendant. That is, if, after hearing the evidence of all the witnesses, your minds are brought to the belief in the defendant's guilt, then you may be said to have no reasonable doubt, and if you so find from the evidence you should find the defendant guilty; but if, after weighing all the evidence, your minds should be in a condition of uncertainty, then you may be said to have a reasonable doubt, and in that case your verdict should be ‘Not guilty.’ ” The appellant complains of this instruction for various reasons, the first of which is that it uses the word “fact” as the equivalent of “allegation.” The use made of the word was not accurate, but the meaning which was intended to be conveyed is reasonably certain, and prejudice could not have resulted from the error. A more serious question arises from the definition of a reasonable doubt which is contained in the instruction. That states, in effect, that if the evidence creates in the minds of the jurors a belief in the defendant's guilt, they would not have a reasonable doubt that he was guilty. That is not necessarily true. It is said that “belief admits of all degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the fullest assurance.” Webst. Int. Dict. A person may entertain a belief in regard to a matter which is not sufficiently firm to exclude all reasonable doubt. But the statement to which we have referred is qualified by what follows. It is said, in substance, that if, after weighing all the evidence, the jurors are not certain that the defendant is guilty, they would have a reasonable doubt as to his guilt; and the next instruction states that “a reasonable doubt means a doubt which arises reasonably from the evidence, and is not a captious doubt, or a doubt which is raised as an excuse or opportunity to raise a discussion from unimportant and immaterial or trivial evidence.” With these modifications, the error in the definition pointed out could not have been prejudicial.

2. The defendant testified as a witness for himself, and the court charged the jury as follows: “The defendant has the right to testify in his own behalf, and he...