State v. Newman

• Decision Date: 06 February 1897
• Citation: 47 P. 881,57 Kan. 705
• Parties: STATE v. NEWMAN.
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

47 P. 881

57 Kan. 705

STATE v. NEWMAN.

Supreme Court of Kansas

February 6, 1897

Syllabus

1. Where the defense of insanity is interposed in a prosecution for murder, the important question is the mental capacity or incapacity of the defendant at the time of the homieide: but testimony as to his state of mind shortly before and after the homicide may be received as tending to show his mental condition at the time of the homicide.

2. Where testimony is received tending to show that the defendant was mentally incapable of committing a crime, it is the duty of the court to charge the jury upon the law applicable to that defense.

3. Although the testimony may be weak as compared with other testimony tending to show sanity, the duty of weighing the same is for the determination of the jury; and in such case a refusal to submit the question to the jury, with proper instructions as to the law governing the same, is error.

Appeal from district court, Jackson county; Louis A. Myers, Judge.

Samuel F. Newman was convicted of manslaughter, and appeals. Reversed.

Samuel F. Newman was charged with the murder of Charles Hoover on the evening of October 17, 1895. At the trial he was found guilty of manslaughter in the second degree, and the punishment adjudged was imprisonment at hard labor for a term of three years. The following is a summary of the evidence as shown by the record: “The testimony tended to show and prove that Charles Hoover, an unmarried man, of about thirty years of age, on the evening of October 17, 1895, went from his home in Holton to the house of defendant, Samuel F Newman, situated on a farm about seven miles from Holton going in a buggy drawn by one horse. That at the home of the defendant on that evening was the wife of the defendant and his three little children. That the neighbors of defendant were notified by the brother of defendant, one James Newman that Charles Hoover had been shot and killed by the defendant in this action. That the neighbors got to the home of defendant between 1 and 2 o’clock of the morning of October 18, 1895, and found Charles Hoover dead in the yard his body lying on his face, his head being about twelve feet east of the porch, and his feet lying the length of his body nearer the porch. There were three places where there were pools of blood, about the same distance from the porch. A bullet hole shot by a ball from a Winchester rifle entered his head at the back, and came out over his left eye and the forehead, and of which wound he died. The body was quite cold when first found by the neighbors. The place where he was found was in the county of Jackson, in the state of Kansas. The window curtains were drawn down. The door of the kitchen had the appearance of being bursted in from the outside. Two pistol shots were fired into the west wall from the east or from the direction of the east kitchen door, which had been broken open. There was an appearance of a scuffle having taken place in the kitchen and near the east door. That on the wooden ceiling of the kitchen there were marks of some sort of a pistol or gun barrel having been scraped along the ceiling in two places, having the appearance of there having been a struggle to obtain it. On the dead body of Hoover were found two letters from the wife of the defendant to Hoover, one inviting him to meet her in Holton on the night of October 16, 1895, and the other upbraiding him for not meeting her as requested in preceding letter, and inviting him to come out to her home on the evening of October 17, 1895, as her husband would be gone from home to Dennison. It was admitted that Hoover went to the home of the defendant for the purpose of having sexual intercourse with the wife of the defendant. Hoover was found unarmed, with the exception of a small rock in his coat pocket. He was fully dressed. There was no bed in the kitchen where the shots were fired. The defendant was found by the neighbors on the kitchen floor, lying upon his back, moaning and apparently in great agony. The body of Hoover showed a cut on the forehead, and a bruise or two on the head, and a cut in his hat. The inside of his...