State v. Nott
Decision Date | 20 October 1914 |
Docket Number | 29634 |
Parties | STATE OF IOWA, Appellee, v. HENRY NOTT, Appellant |
Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
REHEARING DENIED TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1915.
Appeal from Taylor District Court.--HON. H. K. EVANS, Judge.
THE defendant was accused of murder and convicted of manslaughter. He appeals.
Affirmed.
McCoun & Brant, for appellant.
George Cosson, Attorney General, and John Fletcher, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
The defendant was marshal of the incorporated town of Gravity and on April 22, 1913, struck Ed Brand on the head with a "billy," thereby causing his death. The evidence tended to show that Brand was intoxicated; that this was made an offense by the town ordinances and that thereunder it was the duty of defendant to arrest Brand and that the killing occurred in attempting so to do. Whether defendant struck Brand once only with his "billy" or repeatedly was in dispute. The evidence of the state tended to show that Brand had jerked away from defendant once or twice; that then defendant struck him at least twice and that when Brand was on his knees with his hand up pleading for time, defendant delivered the fatal blow. On the other hand, defendant testified that when he took hold of Brand and told him to consider himself under arrest, he jerked away twice and then they clinched and, quoting:
I. One Houk was asked, "What, if anything, did you notice about him (deceased) when you met him at the barn?" A. "Well, he was kind of give out."
The defendant moved to strike the answer without naming any ground therefor. The motion was rightly overruled.
One Downing was allowed to testify over objection that he and defendant had been talking about a party who had recently been beaten into insensibility in Gravity and that defendant then said he was going to get some more of them in the same way. This was in the nature of a threat which, though general, might have included deceased and evidence concerning it was for that reason admissible. State v. Windahl, 95 Iowa 470, 64 N.W. 420.
II. Appellant criticizes several of the instructions, but as exceptions thereto were not preserved in the manner exacted by Secs. 3 and 4 of Chap. 289 of the Acts of the Thirty-fifth General Assembly (Secs. 3705-a and 3705-b, Code Sup. 1913), these cannot be considered. These sections read:
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