State v. Randolph

• Decision Date: 22 January 1926
• Docket Number: 2719. [a1]
• Parties: STATE v. RANDOLPH.
• Court: Nevada Supreme Court

242 P. 697

49 Nev. 241

STATE v. RANDOLPH.

No. 2719. ^[a1]

Supreme Court of Nevada

January 22, 1926

Appeal from District Court, Washoe County; Thomas F. Moran, Judge.

John H Randolph was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed with direction.

Sanders J., dissenting.

A Grant Miller, of Reno, for appellant.

M. A Diskin, Atty. Gen., Wm. Forman, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., and L. D. Summerfield, Dist. Atty., and H. L. Heward, Asst. Dist. Atty., both of Reno, for the State.

COLEMAN C.J.

John H. Randolph was convicted of murder in the first degree. A motion for a new trial having been denied, he has appealed from the sentence inflicting the death penalty and from the order denying his motion for a new trial.

Three points have been made to support the contention that the judgment and order should be reversed, viz.: First, that the trial court erred in instructing the jury as to the distinction between first and second degree murder; second, that the verdict is contrary to the evidence; and third, that a new trial should have been granted because of newly discovered evidence.

The evidence shows that the defendant is a man about 45 years of age; that he had long been addicted to the use of drugs, and on two or three occasions had been committed for treatment for the habit. It further appears from the testimony that on or about the night of June 30, 1925, he was residing with his mother in Reno, Nev., and about 1:30 a. m., went home in an intoxicated condition and was helped into the house by one Gaffney; that he found his way into his mother's room where she was in bed; that he requested her to get up and make him a cup of coffee, and was told that she was sick and could not do it. He then requested her to get up and help him undress for bed, to which she replied that she was too sick, but she finally started to get out of bed to help him, at a moment when he began to use vile language toward her, whereupon she threw a glass of water in his face. He then assaulted her, knocking her down. He then jumped on her and caught her by the throat and was in the act of choking her, declaring, "I will kill you; I will kill you," when roomers in the house came in and pulled him off. His mother was a woman weighing about 350 pounds and was between 70 and 75 years of age. At the request of the mother, the police were called. When they arrived, he went to his mother and asked her to tell them it was all a mistake. She replied, "Not this time." She was removed to a hospital, where she died three days later, the autopsy showing several bruises about the head and body. It appears he had kicked her in the abdomen. The immediate cause of death was the injuries received on the head.

The only evidence introduced in behalf of the defendant was that going to show his years of dissipation and the effect thereof upon his physical and mental condition. There was no evidence to the effect that he was, or had ever been, insane.

We will first consider the second contention. Our statute defines murder to be the unlawful killing of a human being, with malice aforethought, either express or implied. The unlawful killing may be effected by any of the various means by which it may be occasioned. Express malice is that deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a fellow creature which is manifested by external circumstances capable of proof. In 1919 the Legislature enacted:

"Malice shall be implied when no considerable provocation appears, or when all the circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart. All murder which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, or lying in wait, torture, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, rape, robbery, or burglary, or which shall be committed by a convict in the state prison serving a sentence of life imprisonment, shall be deemed murder of the first degree." 1919 Stats. p. 468.

Counsel for defendant concedes that malice might have been implied by the jury but contends, as we understand him, that it must have been proven that the killing was willful, deliberate, and premeditated before the jury could have been justified in bringing in a verdict of murder of the first degree, and that there was no such proof. Just how counsel thinks deliberation and premeditation should be proven is not made clear. One thing is evident, however, and that is, if we accept his theory, proof of deliberation and premeditation could never be made in a case depending entirely upon circumstantial evidence. But it does not seem that it should be necessary to determine his contention, for it seems there is positive evidence in this case of a willful, deliberate, and premeditated design to kill. Defendant assaulted his mother, kicking her in the abdomen and knocking her down, got upon her, and while in the act of choking her, said, "I will kill you; I will kill you." This utterance, we must presume, was the expression of his real design. His mother died three days later as the result of his misconduct. To us it seems that no clearer case of willful, deliberate, and premeditated design to kill can be conceived. It is true that the immediate cause of death was the blows on the head, but the assault continued up to the moment the defendant was pulled off of the deceased, and his utterances during the making of the assault showed the state of mind of the defendant.

We will now take up the contention that the court erred in giving instruction No. 2, which reads:

"The court instructs the jury that, in dividing murder into two degrees, the Legislature intended to assign to the first, as deserving of greater punishment, all murders of a cruel and aggravated character, and to the second all other kinds of murder, which are murder at common law, and to establish a test by which the degree of every case of murder may be readily ascertained. That test may be thus stated: Is the killing willful (that is to say, intentional), deliberate, and premeditated? If it is, the case falls within the first, and, if not, within the second, degree. There are certain kinds of murder in which the Legislature makes the malice which is implied from the circumstances of the killing, whether voluntary or not, to stand in the place of that express malice-the deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a fellow creature-which is, in all other cases, essential to the crime of murder in the first degree; these the Legislature has enumerated in the statute, and has taken upon itself the responsibility of saying that they shall be deemed and held to be murder of the first degree. These cases are of two classes: First, where the killing is perpetrated by means of poison, etc.; the second is where the killing is done in the perpetration, or attempt to perpetrate, some one of the enumerated felonies. Where the case comes within either of these classes, the test question, 'Is the killing willful, deliberate, and premeditated?' is answered by the statute itself, and the jury have no option but to find the prisoner guilty in the first degree. Hence, so far as these two cases are concerned, all difficulty as to the question of degree is removed by the statute. But there is another and much larger class of cases included in the definition of murder in the first degree, which are of equal cruelty and aggravation with those enumerated, and which, owing to the different and countless forms which murder assumes, it is impossible to describe in the statute. In this class the Legislature leaves the jury to determine, from all the evidence before them, the degree of the crime, but prescribes for the government of their deliberation the same tests which have been used by itself in determining the degree of the other two classes, to wit, the deliberate and preconceived intent to kill. It is only in the latter class of cases that any difficulty is experienced in drawing the distinction between murder of the first and murder of the second degree, and this difficulty is more apparent than real. The unlawful killing must be accompanied with a deliberate and clear intent to take life in order to constitute murder of the first degree. The intent to kill must be the result of deliberate premeditation. It must be formed upon a preexisting reflection, and not upon a sudden heat of passion sufficient to preclude the idea of deliberation. There need be no appreciable space of time between the intention to kill and the act of killing; they may be as instantaneous as successive thoughts of the mind. It is only necessary that the act of killing be preceded by a concurrence of will, deliberation, and premeditation on the part of the slayer; and, if such is the case, the killing is murder in the first degree, no matter how rapidly these acts of the mind may succeed each other, or how quickly they may be followed by the act of killing."

In the case of State v. Harris, 12 Nev. 414, a very similar instruction was given, and, though a portion of it was criticized, it was not held erroneous. The instruction in the instant case was drawn to meet the criticism in the Harris Case. The instruction was again assailed in State v Hymer, 15 Nev. 49, and in State v. Gee Jon, 46 Nev. 418, 211 P. 676, 217 P. 587, 30 A. L. R. 1443, in each of which it was held that the instruction was not prejudicial. It is settled in this state that such an instruction is not erroneous, and we decline to consider the matter further. In this connection we may state that, though it does not seem to be made as a real ground for reversal of the judgment, something is said to the effect that, under the rule of...