State v. Shelton
| Decision Date | 18 September 1884 |
| Citation | 20 N.W. 459,64 Iowa 333 |
| Parties | THE STATE v. SHELTON |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Marshall District Court.
THE defendant was accused of the crime of murder, committed, as charged in the indictment, in the killing of one William Swanson. He was convicted of murder of the second degree, and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the penitentiary and from this judgment he appeals.
REVERSED.
J. H Bradley, Binford & Snelling and Sutton & Childs, for appellant.
Smith McPherson, Attorney-general, for the State.
I.
Defendant challenged four members of the grand jury. The challenge was sustained as to three of the jurors, and overruled as to the fourth. He then requested the court to order the panel to be filed by the selection of three additional jurors, but this request was overruled. The action of the court in overruling said challenge and refusing to order the panel to be filled, as requested, is complained of. The ground of the challenge was, that the grand juror had formed such an opinion as to the guilt of the defendant as would prevent him from rendering a true verdict on the evidence. The juror was examined as to his qualifications, and answered that he had read some portion of the evidence taken at the time of the coroner's inquest, but did not know that he had read the whole of it; that he thought he had formed an opinion from what he had read as to the guilt of defendant, but that he had no such impression or bias as would prevent him from listening to the evidence and passing on the question as impartially as though he had never heard of the case. No evidence except this statement of the juror was offered in support of the challenge. We think it was properly overruled. The statement of the juror did not show that he was prejudiced or disqualified by reason of his opinion.
It was held by this court, in The State v. Garhart, 35 Iowa 315, that when, by reason of the sustaining of challenges to individual jurors, the panel was left with a less number than fifteen jurors qualified to act in the cases in which the challenges had been allowed, it was competent for the district court to order that the panel be filled by the addition of the requisite number of jurors, who should act only in those cases. It was also held that when by such means the panel was reduced to a number less than twelve, it was the duty of the court to make such order. Under this ruling, it would have been proper for the court to make the order as requested by defendant. But we are of opinion that he was in no manner prejudiced by the refusal of the court to make such order. The jury, as constituted, was a legal grand jury. It was composed of fifteen jurors, who had been appointed, summoned and impaneled in the manner directed by the statute. Three of the number, it is true, were prohibited from acting in the investigation of the charge against defendant, but the organization of the body was not affected by that circumstance. It required the concurrence of twelve grand jurors to find an indictment against him on that charge. There were twelve of the number who were competent to act in the case, and these twelve concurred in finding the indictment. The result to the defendant could not have been changed by the addition of three other jurors to the panel, even though each one of those so added had opposed the finding of the indictment.
II. The indictment is in the following words: "The grand jury * * * * accuse Eugene Shelton of the crime of murder in the first degree, committed as follows: The said Eugene Shelton, on the twenty-seventh day of November, A. D. 1883, in the county aforesaid, and upon the body of one William Swanson, then and there being, willfully, feloniously, deliberately, premeditatedly, and of his malice aforethought, did commit an assault with a deadly weapon, being a revolver, then and there held in the hands of the said Eugene Shelton, and loaded and charged with powder and bullets, and then and there the said Eugene Shelton did, with the specific intent to kill and murder the said William Swanson, willfully, feloniously deliberately, premeditatedly, and of his malice aforethought, shoot off and discharge the contents of said deadly weapon at, against, into and through the chest and body of the said William Swanson, thereby willfully, feloniously, deliberately, premeditatedly, and of his malice aforethought, inflicting in and upon the chest and body of the said William Swanson a mortal wound, of which wound the said William Swanson did languish, and, languishing, did live until the twenty-ninth day of November, A. D. 1883, and on the said twenty-ninth day of November, A. D. 1883, in the county aforesaid, the said William Swanson of said mortal wound did die * * * *"
The district court held that the indictment charged the defendant with the crime of murder of the first degree, and put him on trial for that offense. This ruling is assigned as error. The position of counsel for defendant is, that a deliberate and premeditated intent to kill is an element of the crime of murder of the first degree, and that the indictment, while it charges that the act which caused the death of Swanson was done with the specific intent to kill him, and was done deliberately and premeditatedly, does not charge that the intent to kill was deliberately formed and premeditated.
The crime of murder of the first degree is defined by Code, § 3849, as follows: "All murder which is perpetrated by means of poison, or lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, * * * * is murder in the first degree" * * By section 3848, murder is defined as the killing of a human being with malice aforethought, either expressed or implied. To constitute the crime of murder of the first degree, then, it is essential that the killing be done with malice aforethought; that it be done willfully; and also that it be done deliberately and premeditatedly. The indictment before us charges very clearly that each of these elements of the crime was present in the killing of William Swanson. It is averred that defendant did the act, and inflicted the wounds which caused his death, with the specific intent to kill him. It is also averred that said wound was inflicted deliberately and premeditatedly. If the wound was inflicted with intent to kill, and death resulted from it--the killing--was willful; and if it was inflicted deliberately and premeditatedly with that intent, the killing was also deliberate and premeditated. And it has never been held that it was necessary to allege more than this in the indictment. See State v. McCormick, 27 Iowa 402; State v. Watkins, 27 Iowa 415; State v. Stanley, 33 Iowa 526.
III. The shooting occurred at the room in which defendant lodged. The evidence showed that defendant had occupied this room for some time before the shooting, with a woman called May Lee, and that Swanson was in the habit of visiting the room on occasions when defendant was absent from it. A witness who testified to having accompanied Swanson to the room on one occasion, and that defendant came into the room while they were there, was asked whether defendant manifested any anger while he was there. The question was objected to by defendant's counsel, on the ground that it called merely for the opinion or conclusion of the witness. The objection was overruled, and the witness answered that defendant looked angry; that he spoke to them when he first came into the room, but afterwards had nothing to say to them.
One of the rules laid down by Mr. Lawson, in his valuable work on expert and opinion evidence, is, that "the physical or mental condition or...
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