State v. Moon
| Citation | 241 Iowa 1232,44 N.W.2d 739 |
| Decision Date | 14 November 1950 |
| Docket Number | No. 47624,47624 |
| Parties | STATE v. MOON. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
Raymond E. Hanke, of Des Moines, for appellant.
Robert L. Larson, Atty. Gen. of Iowa, Don Hise, First Asst. Atty. Gen., Edwin S. Thayer, County Atty. for Polk County, Des Moines, for appellee.
The assault charged was against Delbert Stewart, 83, husband of Esther Stewart, 65, a sister of defendant, 61, all of whom lived in a small residence in Des Moines, the title to which was in the defendant and Mrs. Stewart, as joint tenants with title to vest in the surviving grantee. Defendant lived in two rooms separated by a hall from the three rooms occupied by the Stewarts. There was a bath and toilet room used in common. Their relations and association were not pleasant and, according to defendant, were aggravated by a third sister, Mable Orr, 59. There was a telephone in the quarters of each, on a party line, and the listening-in on the telephone conversations of the other was mutual.
On January 29, 1949, Bessie heard Mable advising Esther, over the telephone, to watch out for her stuff or Bessie would steal everything she could get her hands on. Defendant testified that immediately after this conversation she went into the Stewart quarters and told them she was going to remove her things which they were using. This she proceeded to do by dismantling a bed, removing the drawers in a chest, and rolling up a rug. During this disturbance, Esther, who is frail and arthritic, and weighs but ninety pounds, went to the floor. Mr. Stewart testified she was felled by a blow from the fist of Bessie, who denied this and testified she may have jostled her, or she tripped. Esther's hip was broken.
Defendant testified that she then went to her rooms and opened a can of beans and cut a slice of bread with a butcher knife and was having her lunch when she answered a telephone call; during her telephone talk, Delbert Stewart entered her rooms through one door and began picking dishes off the table and striking her with them; at the same time Mable entered from another door and began beating her with the handle end of a mopstick. She testified that she defended herself, and as they were hitting her, Mable grabbed the butcher knife off the table, and she said to her, 'Mable, you'll cut yourself', and Mable said, 'I've already done it.' Defendant further testified: 'Then Del was still hitting me and she was hitting me, and then I had to hit him to knock him away.
. After Mable had gone to call the police and to have the cuts on her fingers dressed, she testified that she asked Delbert for the knife, and he said: 'You won't hurt me?' and she said, 'No'. Then she took the knife from him and said: 'Give me your hand', and she pulled him up.
Mrs. Orr and Mr. Stewart testified to their version of what took place in substance, as follows: They were standing the rolled-up carpet in a corner of the hall when defendant came out of her rooms hurriedly toward them with her right arm upraised grasping a butcher knife in her hand with the blade pointed downward, saying to Stewart: that Mrs. Orr grabbed defendant's right wrist and in the scuffle for the knife, defendant struck Stewart with her left hand and knocked him on his back and fell on top of him on her knees; that her (Mrs. Orr) hand slipped down on the blade and cut her fingers, and Bessie stopped the scuffle and the knife fell on the floor.
The court in its instructions told the jury with respect to the included offense of assault and battery that the burden was on the state to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant committed said included offense, and that said assault was not made by the defendant in self-defense. (Italics ours.)
In the instruction on the included offense of assault with intent to commit great bodily injury, the court did not include the words italicized above.
The court instructed the jury that: 'By great bodily injury is meant an injury to the person greater than that which ordinarily results from a simple altercation between parties with the fists or the like, * * *.'
I. Defendant assigns error in the giving of the instruction set out just above, in that the definition given of great bodily injury is not correct and does not meet the definition thereof stated in State v. Crandall, 227 Iowa 311, 316, 288 N.W. 85, 88. In the cited case, we said: ...
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State v. Hodge
...only when the evidence raises a substantial issue of self-defense that an instruction on the subject need be given. State v. Moon, 241 Iowa 1232, 1236, 44 N.W.2d 739, 741; State v. Russo, 193 Iowa 992, 999, 188 N.W. 660, 663. We find no evidence of self-defense in the record before us. The ......
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State v. Sharkey, 65379
...v. Frommelt, 159 N.W.2d 532, 535 (Iowa 1968); State v. Bales, 251 Iowa 677, 684, 102 N.W.2d 162, 166 (1960); State v. Moon, 241 Iowa 1232, 1236, 44 N.W.2d 739, 741 (1950). This statement of the general rule appears in 6A C.J.S. Assault & Battery § 128, at 555 In a prosecution for assault an......
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State v. Broten, 53921
...that an instruction on the subject need be given. State v. Hodge, 252 Iowa 449, 461, 105 N.W.2d 613, 620; State v. Moon, 241 Iowa 1232, 1236, 44 N.W.2d 739, 741; State v. Russo, 193 Iowa 992. 999, 188 N.W. 660, The only evidence presented indicates defendant was the aggressor. Viewed in a l......
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State v. Frommelt
...exactly as requested by defendant. The language requested by defendant was taken from an approved instruction in State v. Moon, 241 Iowa 1232, 1235, 44 N.W.2d 739, 740. However, it does not follow this is the only definition permissible in explaining great bodily injury to the jury. We have......