State v. Joeckel

• Citation: 44 Mo. 234
• Parties: THE STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. ANDREW JOECKEL, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 31 March 1869
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

44 Mo. 234

THE STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent,

v.ANDREW JOECKEL, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1869.

Appeal from St. Louis Criminal Court.

Clover & McElheny, for appellant.

C. P. Johnson, circuit attorney, for respondent.

WAGNER, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

The prisoner was indicted in the St. Louis Criminal Court for the crime of murder in the first degree, and at the trial was convicted of murder in the second degree. The only real error complained of is the action of the court in giving and refusing instructions. The evidence shows that the prisoner, in company with several others, on the 30th day of March, 1868, visited several saloons, and were drinking beer, in the town of Manchester; that Harrison, the person killed, did not belong to the company, but met them on one or two occasions on that day. No words of an unfriendly character passed between any of the party and the deceased on that day. Finally, at eight or nine o'clock in the evening, the party were assembled at one of the saloons in that place, and Harrison came in and stood a short time, and left by the back door. He does not seem to have mingled with them in their carousing, nor to have had any misunderstanding with them. Immediately after he left, the prisoner went out of the other door, proceeded around the yard, where he found a spade, and hit Harrison the fatal blow, from which he died in a few hours. The act seems to have been deliberately and coolly done. The companions of the prisoner then took the dying man and carried him across the street, where he lay exposed all night, and on the following morning was found dead.

The prisoner had been heard to say, before the perpetration of the deed, that he would give the deceased what he had given him before; and, after the act was committed, he said that he had “given him one,” and enjoined secrecy on his associates, lest the affair should come to the knowledge of his father. The circuit attorney, on the trial, declined prosecuting for murder in the first degree, but proceeded for murder in the second degree.

The court refused all the instructions asked for by the accused, and, of its own motion, gave, among others, the following: “In this case, the State, by its representative, the circuit attorney, declines to prosecute the defendant for murder in the first degree, as charged in the indictment, but proceeds against him upon the less grave charge which it embodies of murder in the second degree. To this charge alone I will direct your attention, as in my opinion, the testimony in this case does not apply to any other. The distinction between murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree lies in the intention with which the act of killing was done. Where a homicide has been committed, and there was an intent to do the act, then, in the absence of any circumstances of excuse, justification, or extenuation, recognized by law, it is murder in the first degree. But if the party killing did not...