State v. Martin

• Decision Date: 02 January 1906
• Citation: 83 P. 849,47 Or. 282
• Parties: STATE v. MARTIN. [*]
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

83 P. 849

47 Or. 282

STATE v. MARTIN. ^[*]

Supreme Court of Oregon

January 2, 1906

Appeal from Circuit Court, Umatilla County; W.R. Ellis, Judge.

Grover Martin was convicted of manslaughter, and appeals. Affirmed.

J.H Raley and S.D. Peterson, for appellant.

A.M Crawford, Atty. Gen., and G.W. Phelps, Dist. Atty., for the State.

MOORE, J.

The defendant, Grover Martin, was indicted for the crime of murder in the first degree, alleged to have been committed in Umatilla county May 18, 1905, by killing one O.N. Preston and having been tried therefor he was convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, from which judgment he appeals.

His counsel contend that an error was committed in permitting the district attorney, over objection and exception, to detail to the jury, in his opening statement, circumstances pointing to the defendant's participation in the commission of a crime other than that with which he was charged, and in allowing testimony to be introduced tending to prove such statements. In order to illustrate the legal principle insisted upon, a brief statement of the facts involved is deemed essential. The defendant, who is 20 years old, was for several months prior to the homicide studying dentistry with one Dr. Fulton in an office at Milton, where he was visited about May 1, 1905, by the deceased, and informed that he had seduced the latter's daughter. This he denied, and on the 15th of that month he was again visited by the deceased, who reiterated the charge, and exposed the butt of a pistol in his pocket. The defendant, again protesting his innocence promised to visit this daughter and make some arrangement to avoid the shame incident to her condition. This promise was not kept, and three days thereafter, while the defendant was calling at a neighbor's house, the deceased, who lived across the road, invited him out, whereupon a combat ensued in the highway. The defendant knocked the deceased down and continued to pound him in the face until the neighbor interfered. The deceased then arose and picked up a stone but the neighbor took it from him, and as he was standing in the road the defendant shot him, claiming that at that time Preston made a demonstration as if to draw a pistol, when, in fact, he had none. The deceased died in a few hours from the effects of the shot he received. The following is a summary of the statement and testimony complained of: The district attorney, detailing to the jury the facts which the state expected to prove, was permitted to say, in effect, that October 19, 1904, the defendant had illicit sexual intercourse with a daughter of the deceased. Minnie Preston, the daughter referred to, who is 16 years old, appearing as a witness for the state, testified that she had kept company with the defendant, and that she visited a dental office at Milton October 19, 1904, and, the proprietor being absent, the defendant did some work on her teeth, when he locked the door, pushed her into the dental chair, and had sexual intercourse with her. Dr. Alice Jent, a practicing physician, as a witness for the state, testified that Minnie Preston called upon her professionally, and, though she made no physical examination of the patient, the latter informed her that she was enceinte. Viola Preston, Minnie's mother, referring to this daughter, said that she was in the family way.

It is argued by defendant's counsel that for the purpose of showing the aggressor in a combat, it is competent for the prosecution, in a criminal action, to prove that on a previous occasion the parties participating in the encounter had had trouble, but that it is improper to enter into an examination of the antecedent difficulty in detail to determine who was in the wrong; that the testimony as to the condition of Minnie Preston related to the defendant's alleged commission of a crime, wholly unconnected with the offense for which he was being tried; and that such testimony and the statement made by the district attorney diverted the minds of the jurors, thereby inducing the consideration of an immaterial matter to the prejudice of the defendant. The rule is quite general that evidence of the commission, by the defendant in a criminal action, of another offense, wholly unconnected with the crime for which he is being tried, is inadmissible on the ground that such evidence tends to mislead the jury, creates in their minds a prejudice against the prisoner, and requires him to answer a charge for which he is not supposed to have made preparation. 1 Greenl.Ev. (15th Ed.) § 52; Underhill, Crim.Ev. § 87; State v. Baker, 23 Or. 441, 32 P. 161; State v. O'Donnell, 36 Or. 222, 61 P. 892; State v. McDaniel, 39 Or. 161, 65 P. 520. To this rule there is, among others, the well-recognized exception that relevant evidence is not inadmissible because it may indirectly tend to establish the prisoner's guilt of another dissimilar crime, if there exists a union of motives in the commission of the separate offenses. Underhill, Crim.Ev. § 90. This text-writer, illustrating the deviation from the rule adverted to, says: "Thus the fact that the evidence introduced to prove the motive of the crime for which the accused is on trial points him out as guilty of an independent and totally dissimilar offense is not enough to bring about its rejection, if it is otherwise competent. Under this exception to the general rule, where facts and circumstances amount to proof of another crime than that charged, and it appears probable that the crime charged grew out of the other crime, or was in any way caused by it, the facts and circumstances may be proved to show the motive of the accused." In State v. Reed, 53 Kan. 767, 37 P. 174, 42 Am.St.Rep. 322, the defendant being tried for murder, testimony was admitted tending to show criminal intimacy between him and the wife of the deceased. It was contended that, as the killing was admitted, the motive could be shown in a general way, but that a detailed inquiry necessarily created a new issue. It was ruled, however, that such evidence was admissible; the court saying: "A detailed inquiry was made, and a large volume of testimony was taken. It may be said, however, that this was due, to a large extent, to the fact that an undue intimacy between these parties was denied by the defendant. The testimony of the illicit relation, however, if it existed, was receivable in evidence as tending to show the motive of the defendant in killing the deceased." In Webb v. State, 73 Miss. 456, 19 So. 238, it was held on the trial of a person charged with murder that evidence tending to show that the accused had seduced a sister of the deceased was admissible from which a motive for the commission of the crime charged might be inferred. In Commonwealth v. Ferrigan, 44 Pa. 386, the defendant being tried for murder, it was held that evidence of his adulterous intercourse with the wife of the deceased was admissible to prove a motive for the crime involved. In State v. Larkin, 11 Nev. 314, on the trial of an indictment for murder, it was held that evidence of illicit relations between a witness and the deceased and between such witness and the prisoner was admissible as tending to prove a motive for the killing. So, too, in Morrison v. Commonwealth, 74 S.W. 277, 24 Ky.Law Rep. 2493, on the trial of an indictment for murder, it was held that evidence of the prisoner's improper relations with a sister of the deceased was admissible as tending to show a motive for the commission of the crime charged. In support of the exception that evidence of the prisoner's participation in other offenses is admissible to prove a motive for the commission of the crime for which he is being tried, see, also, People v. Pool, 27 Cal. 572; People v. Walters, 98 Cal. 138, 32 P. 864; Fraser v. State, 55 Ga. 325; Franklin v. Commonwealth, 92 Ky. 612, 18 S.W. 532; State v. Pancoast (N.D.) 67 N.W. 1052, 35 L.R.A. 518; State v. Williamson, 106 Mo. 162, 17 S.W. 172; Beberstein v. Territory, 8 Okl. 467, 58 P. 641.

In the case at bar, the defendant having been indicted for the crime of murder in the first degree, the written accusation involved the elements of malice, premeditation, and deliberation, to determine which necessitated the introduction of testimony on the part of the state tending to prove the charge as laid. The imputation of seduction of an unmarried female of previous chaste character, if established in a criminal action involving that charge, subjects the man found guilty thereof to punishment by imprisonment, unless the parties marry subsequent to the commission of the offense. B. &. C. Comp. § 1921. It is stated in the brief of appellant's counsel that at the time of the homicide the defendant was keeping company with another young woman who lived near Milton, to whom, the testimony tended to show, he was presumably engaged to be married. Assuming this to be so it is improbable that he would willingly marry Miss Preston, and hence, if he was found guilty of seducing her, a sentence of imprisonment...