State v. McPherson

• Decision Date: 09 June 1911
• Docket Number: 16,978 - (19)
• Citation: 131 N.W. 645,114 Minn. 498
• Parties: STATE v. JACKSON D. McPHERSON
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

131 N.W. 645

114 Minn. 498

STATE v. JACKSON D. McPHERSON

Nos. 16,978 - (19)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

June 9, 1911

Appeal by defendant from an order of the district court for St Louis county, Ensign, J., denying his motion for a new trial after conviction of murder in the second degree. Reversed and new trial granted.

SYLLABUS

Homicide -- burden of proof -- self defense.

In homicide cases no burden rests upon the defendant to prove that the killing was justifiable, because done in self-defense; but the jury, to convict, must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was not justifiable. In this case, held error to refuse defendant's request for an instruction to that effect.

Charge to jury -- duty to retreat when attacked.

Defendant shot deceased in the bunk room of a steamboat, used by both as a sleeping room. Held, that an instruction that permitted the jury to find that defendant was bound, when attacked, to retreat through the door of the room, was incorrect as applied to the facts, and misleading.

Improper argument.

Certain remarks of the county attorney in his argument to the jury held improper.

Warner E. Whipple, for appellant.

George T. Simpson, Attorney General, John H. Norton, County Attorney, and Warren E. Greene, for the State.

OPINION

BUNN, J.

Defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree, and appeals from an order refusing a new trial.

The homicide was admitted, and the sole question on the trial was whether it was justifiable. Defendant and Otto Frey, the deceased, were firemen on the steamboat North Lake, which was tied up to a dock in the Duluth harbor. They were friends and companions. Defendant shot Frey in the bunk room, where both slept. There was no eyewitness to the shooting, except defendant. The men had been drinking during the morning. Frey had become incensed at certain actions of defendant in a saloon where they were drinking, and had struck him, and called him vile names, but apparently defendant resented neither the blow nor the words. Frey returned to the boat. Defendant returned some time afterwards, and Frey continued his abusive language. Defendant ate his dinner in the mess room, and Frey went to the bunk room. Defendant went to the bunk room after he finished eating, found Frey in the room standing near the door, passed him, and went to his bunk. Shortly after this a shot was heard, and Frey was seen to step out of the bunk room through the door and to fall dead on the deck. The only evidence of what happened between defendant and Frey in the room is the evidence of defendant. It is not necessary to give defendant's story, further than to say that he claims that Frey attacked him, and that he finally shot in self-defense.

It is not argued that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain a conviction, but it does not appear conclusively from the evidence that the killing was not justifiable. If the jury believed defendant's story, there was certainly a reasonable doubt of his guilt. It is in this light that we must consider the errors complained of. The question was whether the killing was without justification. Defendant was entitled to have this question correctly and fairly presented to the jury. He was entitled to a dispassionate consideration of his case by the jury, under instructions...