State v. Moore

• Decision Date: 11 April 1908
• Docket Number: 15,670
• Citation: 95 P. 409,77 Kan. 736
• Parties: THE STATE OF KANSAS v. JOHN C. MOORE
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

95 P. 409

77 Kan. 736

THE STATE OF KANSAS v. JOHN C. MOORE

No. 15,670

Supreme Court of Kansas

April 11, 1908

Decided January, 1908.

Appeal from Cowley district court; CARROLL L. SWARTS, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

1. CRIMINAL LAW -- Evidence -- Collateral Facts. In the trial of criminal cases the evidence should be confined to the question in issue; facts collateral to, and not connected with, the subject being investigated are not admissible.

2. CRIMINAL LAW -- Instructions. Instructions examined and approved.

Fred S Jackson, attorney-general, and Ed J. Fleming, county attorney, for The State; A. M. Jackson, and A. L. Noble, of counsel.

Adams & Adams, and L. C. Brown, for appellant.

OPINION

GRAVES, J.:

On December 27, 1906, J. C. Moore was convicted in the district court of Cowley county of murder in the first degree for killing his wife, Clara C. Moore. A motion for a new trial was denied, sentence was pronounced, and the defendant appeals to this court. Thirty-seven assignments of error have been presented, but as several of them relate to the same questions it will be unnecessary to consider them in detail.

Complaint is made of the district court for admitting evidence of domestic troubles between the defendant and deceased existing years prior to the homicide and in no way relating thereto. Mrs. Edith McCullough, a daughter of the deceased, and a stepdaughter of the defendant, testified to profane and vulgar language used by the defendant to her mother at different times during a period beginning more than twelve years before the commission of the crime charged; also, that in 1901 he put the witness and her mother out of the house and upon the porch.

Mrs. Moore was a member and regular attendant of the Baptist church. This practice on her part was violently opposed by her husband. To prevent her churchgoing, he made threats of violence against her and used vulgar and profane language concerning her and other churchgoing people. This conduct of the defendant became so persistent and violent that the deceased left him, and on March 27, 1901, she commenced a suit for divorce and alimony, alleging extreme cruelty. The defendant answered and alleged that they had a family controversy concerning a "Carrie Nation crusade" then being conducted in the city, in which he and the deceased, with her daughter Edith, were in opposition, and the conduct and talk of Edith so irritated him that he put her out of the house. On April 19, 1901, Mrs. Moore obtained a decree of divorce and for alimony. A motion for a new trial was allowed June 4, 1901. The case was then dismissed by Mrs. Moore, and the parties resumed their marital relations. The reason for this reconciliation is given by one of the witnesses as follows:

"Why, I have heard her say before him, that she came back because he promised to do right and promised to go to church with her. I have heard her ask him to go to church with her; I have heard her offer to go to other churches, other than the Baptist church, with him, and I heard her say that he promised to and heard him say that he wouldn't go; I have heard her ask him to go a number of times and told him that she came back to live with him because he promised to be a man and promised to do what was right."

Some time afterward, and during the year 1901, Mrs. Moore, her daughter Edith, R. B. McCullough, who afterward married Edith, and his sister started to attend an entertainment at Chilocco, an Indian school a few miles away. The defendant followed, overtook them, and compelled his wife to return. It appears that the defendant was very much opposed to the relations then existing between Edith and McCullough. The occurrence is described by McCullough thus:

"My sister had come to town and there was an entertainment at Chilocco; she drove in with a horse and buggy, and Edith Tombs proposed that we go to Chilocco and that her mother would like to go. I had no objections and I told her I would go with my sister; I took my horse and buggy down to John Moore's house and Mrs. Moore and Edith Tombs--Tombs then--got in the buggy; just as they were driving away John Moore came up and he hollered something at them--I don't just remember what it was--and they drove on in a way that they did n't hear him, or went anyway, and he then jumped on to me and cursed me and shook his fist in my face and accused me of trying to take his wife out of town. I tried to argue the question with him. I told him I wasn't and I supposed he knew she was going also, and they were just going to Chilocco to an entertainment and would be back, but he paid no attention to my plea and I walked away and left him alone, went up town to my sister, where she was in the buggy at a livery-barn, I think, and we hitched up and drove on to Chilocco and overtook them and passed them and was in the lead when some one drove up from behind and came around in front of Mrs. Moore and her daughter, and I drove on a little, not very far, and stopped; I heard him order her to get out of the buggy and go back to town with him, which she refused to do; but her daughter got out of the buggy and came and got in the buggy with me and my sister, and Mrs. Moore turned to go back to town; he also turned, and as he turned he put his hand on his hip pocket and turned to me as he said: 'For two cents and a half I would put a hole through you.' I drove on, and they drove back to town, and I seen no more of them that day."

Minnie Tombs, another daughter of the deceased, testified substantially the same as her sister Edith concerning the treatment of her mother by the defendant years before the homicide.

On January 1, 1906, another separation having taken place, the deceased caused the defendant to be arrested, for the purpose of compelling him to give a bond to keep the peace. In her verified complaint she stated that the defendant had made threats to assault and kill her, and she was afraid he would do so.

The state introduced in evidence the verified answer of the defendant in the divorce suit, the decree, the order granting a new trial, and the order of dismissal. The complaint in the peace proceedings and the warrant issued therein, with the return thereon showing the arrest of the defendant, were also introduced. It was then shown by the statement of the justice of the peace that the defendant was committed to jail, but that when the case came up for trial, the...