State v. Jones
| Decision Date | 11 April 1882 |
| Citation | 12 Mo.App. 93 |
| Parties | STATE OF MISSOURI, Respondent, v. EMMETT JONES, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
The gross ignorance, incompetence, and imbecility of the attorney of one accused of murder, by reason of which the prisoner is deprived of essential rights and advantages guaranteed to him by law, necessary to a proper defence, and inseparable from a fair trial, is sufficient ground for setting aside a conviction and granting a new trial.
APPEAL from the St. Louis Criminal Court, LAUGHLIN, J.
Reversed and remanded.
DAVENPORT & NAPTON, W. F. MCINTIRE, and F. B. STRODE, for the appellant.
J. R. HARRIS, for the respondent.
The defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. It is not satisfactorily shown to us that any error was committed by the court in the conduct of the trial, but our attention is strongly called to its refusal to sustain a motion for a new trial, based upon the alleged ignorance, imbecility, and incompetency of the defendant's attorney, and his gross mismanagement of the cause.
Such a claim for reversal must be considered with great caution. The law has provided means whereby only persons qualified by learning, intellectual capacity, and good moral character, may be permitted to defend, in a court of justice, the reputation, property, or life of a fellow-citizen. This being done, the presumption necessarily follows that one who, by such means, has become armed with the proper credentials, will be competent to judge and faithful to adopt the best methods for securing a vindication of his client's rights; with the further presumption that the client, in selecting him, has elected to abide by the results of his skill and fidelity. It would be difficult to state with too much emphasis how the stern severity of the courts has generally compelled parties to stand by the consequence of negligent omission, blundering, or improper management by their attorneys in legal proceedings. This severity is generally justified by the most important considerations of public policy, as well as by the plain demands of justice, as between the parties to the cause. In civil cases the rule is broadly laid down that “neither the ignorance, blunders, nor misapprehension of counsel, not occasioned by the adverse party, is a ground for vacating a judgment or decree.” Boston v. Haynes, 33 Cal. 31; Farmers' Co. v. Bank, 23 Wis. 249; Burton v. Hynson, 14 Ark. 32; Burton v. Wiley, 26 Vt. 430; Quinn v. Wetherbee, 41 Cal. 247.
But must there be absolutely no limit to the operation of this rule, even where a human life is at stake? If an attorney should become insane during the progress of a trial, and should thereupon take such steps as should insure the conviction of an innocent client, would no relief be possible? To say so, would be a libel on the law. In looking over this record, we find, in the performance of the counsel for the defendant, an exhibition of ignorance, stupidity, and silliness that could not be more absurd or fantastical, if it came from an idiot or a lunatic. Among many similar examples, it was urged that no act of congress had ever authorized the state of Missouri to delegate to the city of St. Louis the power of enforcing the laws; and that the state could not offer proof of the killing, without first proving affirmatively that the deceased was alive and that he did not kill himself. Objection was made to an officer's testifying, “because he undertakes to testify to a confession which he has already testified to in the other court, and because it is presumed that he will testify to the same in this court.” It was objected that a confession made in Illinois could not be proved in Missouri, for want of jurisdiction, and because “the United States have made no law” to authorize it. These are only samples of the absurdities with which the record painfully abounds. It must be admitted, that an attorney who is ignorant or imbecile in a general way, may, nevertheless, conduct a cause with propriety, and omit nothing on the trial which would secure any right or advantage in his client's behalf. So much weight, at least, must be accorded to the fact of his admission to the bar. The record before us would indicate no reason for disturbing the judgment, if it contained no evidence of specific and gross mismanagement, by which the prisoner was deprived of some essential right guaranteed to him by law, necessary for his proper defence, and inseparable from a fair trial. Such evidence is not wanting on the present occasion.
No witness saw the fatal shooting. The prisoner, in aid of his application for a new trial, filed an affidavit, stating, in effect, that several weeks before the...
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Goodwin v. Swenson, 1079.
...would hesitate so to decide." Id. at 72, 43 S.Ct. at 65. Fifty years prior to Powell v. State of Alabama the case of State of Missouri v. Jones, 12 Mo.App. 93, decided by a Missouri court in 1882, dealt with an even more extreme case than that put by Mr. Justice Sutherland. In that early Mi......
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...because of the inefficiency of counsel. State v. Dreher, 137 Mo. 11, 38 S. W. 567, overruling in this respect the decision in State v. Jones, 12 Mo. App. 93. See Hudson v. State, 76 Ga. 727;State v. Dangelo, 182 Iowa, 1253, 166 N. W. 587; Commonwealth v. Benesh, Thacher's Criminal Cases, 68......
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