State v. Linden

• Citation: 154 La. 65,97 So. 299
• Decision Date: 30 June 1923
• Docket Number: 26011
• Court: Supreme Court of Louisiana
• Parties: STATE v. LINDEN

97 So. 299

154 La. 65

STATE v. LINDEN

No. 26011

Supreme Court of Louisiana

June 30, 1923

Appeal from Eighteenth Judicial District Court, Parish of Lafayette William Campbell, Judge.

Cornelia Linden, alias Charles, was convicted of manslaughter, and she appeals.

Verdict and sentence annulled, and case remanded.

Kennedy & Roos, of Lafayette, for appellant.

A. V Coco, Atty. Gen., and Percy T. Ogden, Dist. Atty., of Crowley (T. S. Walmsley, of New Orleans, of counsel), for the State.

O'NIELL C. J. ROGERS, J., concurs in the result.

OPINION

O'NIELL, C. J.

Appellant was prosecuted for the crime of murder and convicted of manslaughter. She relies upon three bills of exception.

The first bill was taken to the court's allowing the district attorney to propound a leading question to a witness for the state. The question and answer do not appear to have been at all important; and there is no suggestion that any harm resulted. Under the circumstances, we would not annul a verdict merely because the district attorney was allowed to propound a leading question to a witness for the state.

The second bill of exception was taken to an instruction given in the judge's charge to the jury, on the law of self-defense. The instruction complained of was that, when the defendant, on trial for murder, pleaded self-defense, the killing was admitted. There was no dispute that the alleged victim of the homicide, a woman named Agnes Isadore, was killed. Therefore, the judge's instruction, that the plea of self-defense was an admission of the killing, did not mean merely that it was admitted that the homicide had been committed by some one. The instruction meant that the plea of self-defense was an admission that the defendant had done the killing. On the contrary, the statement of facts, taken down when the bill of exception was reserved, in compliance with the Act No. 113 of 1896, shows that the defendant did not admit that she had done the killing. She testified that she had been attacked by a woman named Elvina Isadore, a sister of Agnes Isadore, armed with a knife; that she (defendant) drew a knife to defend herself; and that, while she and Elvina Isadore were fighting with the knives, Agnes Isadore ran in between them to defend her sister and was stabbed; but that it was not known which knife struck Agnes Isadore. It may be inferred from the verdict that there was proof that it was the defendant's knife that struck Agnes Isadore. But that was not admitted to be true. On the contrary, the attorneys for defendant argued to the jury that the state had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing had been done by the defendant, and not by Elvina Isadore; and they argued, quite consistently, that, even if the jury should conclude that it was the defendant's knife that had done the killing, she should be acquitted if she acted in self-defense, or even if there was a reasonable doubt as to whether she had acted in self-defense. The judge's charge to the jury was wrong and was very harmful, because it denied the defendant the benefit of any reasonable doubt that the jury might have had as to whether the defendant herself or Elvina Isadore had done the killing.

It is not true, as an abstract principle of law, that a plea of self-defense, in a prosecution for murder or manslaughter, is an admission that the defendant did the killing. Self-defense is not a special plea. It comes under the general issue tendered by the plea of not guilty. The defendant does not bear the burden of proof that he or she acted in self-defense. The state has...