State v. Lee

• Decision Date: 28 September 1909
• Citation: 74 A. 4,24 Del. 18
• Court: Court of General Sessions of Delaware
• Parties: STATE v. JAMES LEE

74 A. 4

24 Del. 18

STATE v. JAMES LEE

Court of General Sessions of Delaware, New Castle County

September 28, 1909

Court of General Sessions, New Castle County, September Term, 1909.

INDICTMENT FOR ASSAULT WITH INTENT TO COMMIT MURDER (No. 45, September Term, 1909).

Verdict, not guilty.

W Watson Harrington, Deputy Attorney-General, for the State.

Caleb E. Burchenal for the prisoner.

Judges CONRAD and WOOLLEY sitting.

OPINION

WOOLLEY, J. charging the jury:

Gentlemen of the jury:--James Lee, the prisoner at the bar, is charged in this indictment with having committed, on the twentieth day of July, 1909, in this County and State, an assault upon one Levi Taylor, the prosecuting witness, with intent him the said Levi Taylor to murder. This charge embraces not only an assault, which has been defined to be an attempt with force and violence to do injury to the person of another, but embraces also an intent to commit murder.

In order to convict the prisoner at the bar in manner and form as he stands indicted, it is necessary for the State to satisfy you, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the assault was committed by James Lee, the prisoner, that it was committed with the intent to murder Levi Taylor the prosecuting witness, and that if the said Levi Taylor had died from the effects of the injury received, then James Lee would have been guilty of murder.

The intent to commit murder is an essential ingredient of this charge, and it must be proved to your satisfaction just as any other material fact in the case is proved. The intent to commit murder may be shown by direct evidence of the intent that is, by the express confession or declaration of the accused that he committed the alleged assault with the intent to murder; but the intent to commit murder may also be proved by the acts and conduct of the accused and other circumstances, from which the jury may naturally and reasonably infer the intent charged. For instance, it is a principle of law that every man must be presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his own voluntary and wilful act; so that from the use of a deadly weapon against another the jury may infer the intent to commit murder, unless the circumstances of the case satisfy you to the contrary; such intent, as we have said, being provable by and inferable from the voluntary, unlawful use, in a manner, or under circumstances perilous to human life, or directly tending to great bodily harm, of a loaded gun, of an axe or other weapon which the law considers a deadly weapon, or of any other instrument or missile reasonably likely to take human life when so used.

State vs. DiGuglielmo, 20 Del. 336, 4 Penne. 336, 55 A. 350.

Before you can find the prisoner at the bar guilty of assault with intent to commit murder, you must also find that had Levi Taylor died from the effects of the injuries received, the prisoner would have been guilty of the crime of murder. It is therefore necessary for us to define to you briefly the crime of murder. But we do not think it necessary to define the different degrees of murder under our statue; for whether the crime, if it had been completed by the death of the victim, had been murder of the first or second degree, would be immaterial, as either would meet the requirements of our statute and would justify a verdict of guilty of assault with intent to commit murder.

The crime of murder is the unlawful killing of a human creature in being with malice aforethought, either express or implied. If the killing is proved, it must be also proved that it was done with malice either express or implied, before the person charged can be convicted of murder. But such malice may be implied from any unlawful act such as in itself denotes a wicked heart fatally bent on mischief, or a reckless disregard of human life. The deliberate selection and use of a deadly weapon has been held to be evidence of malice; and where malice exists, together with the killing, the crime of murder is complete. If you believe that the crime of which the prisoner would have been guilty if the prosecuting witness had died from the injuries received would be manslaughter, you could not find him guilty of the intent to commit murder, for in manslaughter there is no malice. Whether there is any evidence in this case to satisfy you that there was malice, either express or implied, is one of the questions for you to determine. (State vs. Scott, 20 Del. 538, 4 Penne. 538, 57 A. 534.)

Malice is implied by law from every deliberate cruel act committed by one person against another, no matter how sudden such act may be; for the law considers that he who does a cruel act voluntarily does it maliciously. And whenever the act from which death ensues is proven by the prosecution, unaccompanied by circumstances of justification excuse or mitigation, the law presumes that the homicide was committed with malice; and it is thereupon incumbent upon the prisoner to show by evidence ...