State v. Lawlor
| Decision Date | 01 August 1881 |
| Citation | 9 N.W. 698,28 Minn. 216 |
| Parties | State of Minnesota v. Edward Lawlor |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
The defendant was indicted in the district court for Winona county for the murder of James Malone, was tried before Buckham, J., (acting for the judge of the 3rd district,) and convicted of manslaughter in the second degree, the jury, in their verdict, recommending him to the mercy of the court. By the judgment of the court he was sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor in the state prison for the term of five years from which judgment he appeals.
Judgment appealed from be affirmed, and the sentence pronounced upon the defendant be executed.
Wm Gale and C. D. O'Brien, for appellant.
Wm. J Hahn, Attorney General, and M. B. Webber, for the State.
1. In empanelling the jury for the trial of the defendant on an indictment for the murder of James Malone, Lewis Gensmer, upon being called as a juror, was challenged by the defendant for general disqualification. He testified that he was born an alien, and, on cross-examination by the county attorney, was allowed to state, under the objection of defendant's counsel, that he had been naturalized in Dodge county, Wisconsin, -- the record of such naturalization not being produced. The court disallowed the challenge, and the defendant excepted. The defendant thereupon challenged him peremptorily. A jury was obtained without the defendant having exhausted the peremptory challenges allowed him by law. The disallowing the challenge is assigned for error here. The error, if such there was, did not, under these circumstances, prejudice the defendant; the disqualified juror did not sit. The prisoner was not prejudiced by using one of his peremptory challenges upon him, for he had others left which he did not use. A very different question would be presented if the defendant had exhausted his peremptory challenges, for the challenge so used might in that case have been required for another juror who was legally qualified to serve. As it was, the defendant was tried by a jury qualified in law, and it was of no consequence to him whether Mr. Gensmer was excused by order of the court as disqualified, or by his peremptory challenge. Mimms v. State, 16 Ohio St. 221; Erwin v. State, 29 Ohio St. 186; State v. Brown, 15 Kan. 400; State v. Davis, 41 Iowa 311; State v. Elliott, 45 Iowa 486. In the case last cited it was held that if a juror challenged by the defendant for cause was improperly admitted to the panel, and the defendant accepted the jury, without exhausting his peremptory challenges, it was the voluntary act of the defendant to permit the juror to serve, and error without prejudice. It is not necessary to go so far in this case.
2. Objection is made to the alleged admission in evidence of plans or diagrams of the saloon in or near which Malone was shot, and of the house of ill-fame kept by Lou Reynolds, which the defendant visited in the afternoon of the day of the homicide, in company with Charles Richman, and where, as the testimony for the state tends to show, each of them obtained a pistol. An architect testified that he made the plans or diagrams from actual measurements by himself after the homicide, and that they correctly represented the premises, except that the position of certain tables, chairs, and movable objects in the saloon on the night of the homicide was indicated therein upon information given him by the keeper of the saloon. The plans or diagrams were not formally offered in evidence, but the witnesses, in testifying to the situation, shape, connections and appointments of the rooms, and the position of persons and movable objects in the saloon, at the time of the homicide, were allowed, against the objection of the defendant, to refer to them to explain and render more easily intelligible their testimony. The witnesses testified from their personal knowledge and observation of the facts, and used the maps only for the purpose above mentioned, indicating in what respect they deemed them inaccurate, if any. There was no error in this. Maps and diagrams are often made for use at the trial, and are quite useful to enable the jury to comprehend clearly the testimony. They are often formally admitted in evidence, and are proper for the consideration of the jury, so far as they are shown to be correct, not as independent testimony, but in connection with other evidence, to enable the jury to understand and apply such evidence. Curtiss v. Ayrault, 3 Hun 487; Johnston v. Jones, 66 U.S. 209, 1 Black 209, 17 L.Ed. 117.
3. When, in a criminal case, the corpus delicti has been established, and evidence has been introduced tending to connect the prisoner with the commission of the crime, it is always competent for the state to introduce evidence properly tending to show a motive on the part of the defendant to commit the crime. The weight to be given to such evidence is for the jury to determine. Its admissibility depends upon whether it tends to establish a motive which might naturally have influenced or controlled the action of the accused. In Overstreet v. State, 46 Ala. 30, the court lay down the rule in the following language: "When it is shown that a crime has been committed, and the circumstances point to the accused as the guilty agent, proof of a motive to commit the offence, though weak and inconclusive evidence, is nevertheless admissible." See, also, Murphy v. People, 63 N.Y. 590; State v. Hinkle, 6 Iowa 380; McCue v. Commonwealth, 78 Pa. 185; State v. Wilkins, 9 Conn. 47; People v. Stout, 4 Park. Crim. Rep. 71.
Indeed, the rule is so reasonable and so well established in criminal jurisprudence as to admit of no doubt of its correctness. It remains to consider whether it was correctly applied in this case. The testimony on the part of the state tended to show that the prisoner and Charles Richman left the house of Lou Reynolds, in the evening of the day of the homicide, in company with her and Alice Richards, also a prostitute and inmate of the house, in a carriage; that they visited and drank at sundry saloons, and at about 10 o'clock stopped at and entered the saloon of one Parrhysius; that Malone was in the saloon, and others; that several altercations occurred among the parties present; that the first act of actual violence was the throwing of beer by Malone upon Lou Reynolds, who retaliated in like manner; that afterwards Richman struck Malone in the face, and that the latter retaliated by throwing a beer-glass at him, hitting him in the face, and immediately started to run out of the saloon. Richman testified that the blow staggered him, and, while he was recovering from it, the prisoner pursued Malone and fired at him the two pistol shots, from the effects of which he died. The prisoner, on the other hand, testified that Richman pursued him (Malone) and fired the shots; and the main contention in the case was as to which of these men fired the fatal shots. The state, under the objection and exception of the defendant, introduced evidence to the effect that Lou Reynolds and the prisoner, at the time of the shooting, were paramours, and had sustained that illicit relationship for a year previous.
The evidence was properly admitted, if, as is claimed by the attorney general, it properly tended to show a motive which might have induced the prisoner to commit the crime. If the prisoner and the woman had sustained a near relationship to each other by blood or marriage, it would readily be admitted that the indignity put upon her by the throwing of the beer upon her would naturally have aroused his resentment; and the observation of mankind will, we think, justify the conclusion that, in the relation which the prisoner sustained to Lou Reynolds, the insulting and contemptuous act of Malone in throwing the beer upon her would be likely to arouse in the prisoner passions quite as vindictive, if less excusable, and quite as likely to lead to acts of violence. We think the evidence was competent to go to the jury. And it may be observed, in this connection, that the remarks of the learned judge of the trial court upon the debased and degraded character of the prisoner, as shown by the evidence, to which the prisoner's counsel excepted, were coupled with an admonition to the jury that the defendant's general character was not on trial, but that it was the duty of the jury to pass upon the one issue of his guilt or innocence of the offence with which he was charged, and that, if he was not proved guilty of that, he should be acquitted, notwithstanding the opinion which might be entertained as to his general character. The prisoner was not prejudiced by calling attention to his debased character, which was made to appear from evidence properly received upon a material issue, and cautioning the jury against an improper use of such evidence.
4. Before the indictment against Lawlor was found, Charles Richman had been indicted for the same murder, and tried and convicted of manslaughter in the second degree, and sentenced to the state prison, and had been afterwards pardoned by the governor, upon the ground of his innocence of the crime, ascertained subsequent to his conviction. Ella Graves, a witness for the state, an inmate of the house kept by the woman Reynolds, testified, by her own confession, upon the trial of Richman, to an entirely different state of facts from what she testified to on the trial of the prisoner; and she stated that her testimony on the former trial, which bore strongly against Richman and in exculpation of the prisoner, was knowingly false, and was given under duress. She stated in substance that Lawlor and Lou Reynolds had threatened her with personal violence if she made certain statements out of court or in,...
To continue reading
Request your trial