State v. Melton
| Decision Date | 20 December 1930 |
| Parties | The State v. Lawton Melton, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Christian Circuit Court; Hon. Robert L. Gideon Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
Stratton Shartel, Attorney-General, and E. G. Robison Assistant Attorney-General, for respondent.
The instruction in the case at bar, being Instruction 2, after what purports to be the definition of culpable negligence proceeds to say: "Any act of negligence whereby one party directly brings about the death of another human being is an act of culpable negligence in law." This is error. State v. Coulter, 204 S.W. 5. 2 Bishop's Criminal Law (9 Ed.) 485; State v. Baublits (Mo.), 27 S.W.2d 21; State v. Luther, 98 N.E. 642; People v. Adams, 124 N.E. 577; In State v. Johnson, 61 L. R. A. 277, the authorities on this subject are annotated and many cases are cited that support the text as stated by Bishop, supra. It is for this court to determine the line of cases it will follow. If it follows the Baublits case and the statement as contained in Bishop's Criminal Law and the other cases mentioned, Instruction 2 is erroneous.
Defendant was convicted of manslaughter as the result of his alleged culpable negligence, was fined five hundred dollars and has appealed. He has brought up the record of the proceedings and all the evidence, but has not favored us with a brief.
One assignment of error in the motion for new trial is that the trial court erred in submitting the case to the jury. This calls for a brief statement of the facts. A Ford automobile, driven by defendant, struck and fatally injured Mrs. Bertie Hilton in the village of Spokane, in Christian County, on the night of October 19, 1928. Her death occurred within an hour or two thereafter. The evidence authorized a finding by the jury that defendant drove his automobile into Spokane at a speed of twenty miles an hour, approaching a number of people alighting from some automobiles, which had just brought them home from a basket ball game at Sparta; that the lights from said automobiles shining on the windshield of defendant's automobile so blinded him in his approach as to prevent him from having a clear view of the road; that Mrs. Hilton was walking on the highway in plain view at the time she was struck and that defendant's lights were burning and in good condition and that he failed to sound his horn.
We think it was a question for the jury whether or not, under all the facts and circumstances in evidence, defendant, in approaching deceased, and probably others likely to be on the highway, without warning, at a speed of twenty miles an hour, when he was blinded by the lights of other automobiles and unable to be certain that no one of the persons alighting from such other automobiles was on the road in front of him, was so negligent as to indicate a reckless disregard of human life and safety on his part. [State v. Millin, 318 Mo. 553, l. c. 557, 300 S.W. 694; State v. Horner, 266 Mo. 109, 180 S.W. 873; State v. Watson, 216 Mo. 420, 115 S.W. 1011; State v. Emery, 78 Mo. 77.]
The main contention of defendant is that the instruction defining culpable negligence was erroneous in failing to require the jury to find that defendant's conduct was not only negligent, but, under the circumstances, indicated on his part a reckless disregard of human life and safety. Instruction 2, given by the court, which defined culpable negligence, reads as follows:
"'Criminal or culpable negligence,' within the meaning of the law, is the omission on the part of one person to do some act, under given circumstances, which an ordinarily careful and prudent man would do under like circumstances; or the doing of some act, under given circumstances which an ordinarily careful and prudent man under like circumstances, would not do, by reason of which omission or action another is directly endangered in life or bodily...
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Spalding v. Robertson, 40082.
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