State v. Jones
| Citation | 89 Iowa 182,56 N.W. 427 |
| Parties | STATE v. JONES. |
| Decision Date | 10 October 1893 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from district court, Polk county; C. P. Holmes, Judge.
The defendant was indicted for the crime of murder in the first degree. He was convicted of murder in the second degree, and he appeals.McHenrys & Johnson, for appellant.
J. Y. Stone, Atty. Gen., W. A. Spurrier, Co. Atty., and Thos. A. Cheshire, for the State.
It is conceded that on the night of the 12th day of June, 1891, the defendant killed one Frederick Kemp by cutting him on and about the head and neck with a razor. The killing occurred during an altercation between the deceased and defendant and some other persons, and the sole ground of defense on the trial in the court below was that the homicide was committed in self-defense. The parties to the affray which resulted in the death of Kemp met at a camp meeting that was then being held in the outskirts of the city of Des Moines. The defendant was armed with a razor, and after his arrival at the meeting he procured a revolver. While at the meeting the defendant and two of his companions engaged in a dispute with the deceased, his brother, and one or more companions, and the parties left the immediate vicinity of the meeting for the purposes of a fight. The defendant exhibited his revolver, and the brother of the deceased had a revolver. No actual conflict in the way of a general engagement took place between the opposing forces, and there was no violence except that one of the defendant's friends pushed the deceased over a guy rope attached to a camp-meeting tent, and the defendant struck one of the comrades of the deceased on the head, and afterwards the party who was struck threw a tin can at the defendant. The parties ceased to quarrel for a time, and all repaired to the tent, where the camp meeting was in progress. The defendant and his two friends left the tent, and proceeded in the direction of his home. The deceased and his friends, when they left the meeting, went in the same direction, and at some distance from the tent they encountered each other, at or near the corner of Twelfth street and Forrest avenue, where the fatal affray took place. There are a great many facts and circumstances disclosed in evidence touching the acts of the parties from the first quarrel at the tent down to the fatal encounter; and it is argued at great length, in behalf of appellant, that the verdict returned by the jury is without support in the evidence. It would be an almost endless task to review the evidence in an opinion, and we will not attempt to do so. It may be conceded, and we believe that the preponderance of the evidence, so far as the number of witnesses who testified to the last encounter is concerned, shows, that the deceased and his friends made the first assault, and attacked the defendant, and one of them struck him with a piece of board. But there is a square conflict in the evidence on this question. If the evidence introduced by the state is to be believed, the defendant and his friends were the aggressors, not only in the affray at the tent, but in the final struggle, in which the defendant took the life of Kemp. A careful examination of every fact and circumstance disclosed in evidence satisfies us that this is not a case in which this court is authorized to interfere with the verdict as being contrary to the evidence. The evidence is quite fully set out in the abstract of appellant. There is an additional abstract prepared by counsel for the state, the correctness of which is denied by counsel for appellant. An examination of these abstracts, in connection with the original record, has put us in possession of every feature of the evidence, and we do not hesitate to hold that we ought not to interfere with this verdict. It may not be amiss to say that none of the parties to the tragedy went to the camp meeting as worshippers. On the contrary, they went there armed with deadly weapons. The jury was fully warranted in finding from the evidence that the defendant was in possession of the razor with which he killed Kemp on the day of the killing, and that he sharpened it on a whetstone in a butcher shop, where he made the declaration that “he was going to hold somebody up before camp meeting was over.” Taking this evidence in connection with the fact that defendant thought it necessary, after he arrived at the meeting, to add a revolver to his other weapon, it is not too much to say that he was at a great disadvantage in his endeavor to maintain that the homicide was excusable by reason of self-defense.
2. It is claimed that the court erred in the ninth paragraph of the charge to the jury. It is as follows: ...
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State v. Stansberry
...that worn by the assaulted party at the time of the conflict, the condition of such clothing may be put before the jury. State v. Jones, 89 Iowa 182, at 188, 56 N.W. 427, cited by the State, is a naked announcement "Because the defendant admitted that he killed Kemp was no reason why the we......
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State v. Walton, 65220
...276 N.W.2d 437, 441 (Iowa 1979), and State v. Fryer, 243 N.W.2d 1, 7 (Iowa 1976); or the weapon used in a homicide, State v. Jones, 89 Iowa 182, 188, 56 N.W. 427, 429 (1893). Defendant's status as a felon is a matter of public record and may be established by a concession or admission of th......
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Hawkins v. State
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Saunders v. State
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