State v. Spaulding
| Decision Date | 15 December 1885 |
| Citation | 34 Minn. 361 |
| Parties | STATE OF MINNESOTA <I>vs.</I> GRANVILLE L. SPAULDING. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Albert F. Foster and J. C. Tarbox, for appellant.
W. J. Hahn, Attorney General, and James M. Martin, for the State.
The defendant shot and fatally wounded one Charles A. Washburn while the latter, a constable, was attempting his arrest, and was tried and found guilty of murder in the first degree. The alleged offence was committed at the house of one Konkler, a brother-in-law of defendant, where deceased went to make the arrest in the evening of October 19, 1884. Both parties were armed with pistols, and each shot and wounded the other. It appears that Washburn proceeded to the house, but did not go in; that soon after the defendant made his appearance at the door, and just after he passed out the former summoned him to surrender, using the words, "You are my prisoner; hands up!" and that thereupon the firing immediately occurred. There is some conflict in the evidence on the part of the respective parties in respect to the circumstances of the attempted arrest, the position occupied by the parties, and the order in which the shots were exchanged, which must have followed one after the other in quick succession, the whole affair occupying but a brief space of time.
The evidence in behalf of the prosecution also tended to show that the defendant had the same day procured the pistol used by him, caused it to be loaded, and made threats to resist any attempt to arrest him at all hazards; that he held a pistol in his right hand as he came out of the house; and that he fired first as soon as he was spoken to by Washburn, and without waiting for or seeking any explanations. The defendant's evidence does not directly controvert the threats, but tended to prove that he was surprised, and assaulted and fired on before he shot Washburn. The credibility of the witnesses, and the intrinsic probability or improbability of their stories, was of course for the jury.
1. This statement of the evidence in this case is made with reference to the first error assigned by the defendant upon this appeal, which involves the question of the materiality of the possession of legal process by the officer, and the competency and sufficiency of the proof thereof introduced at the trial. An attempt to make an arrest, by an officer authorized to make it, can, of itself, be no provocation in law, since every person is bound to submit to the regular course of justice, and the officer's warrant is a protection to him for all acts reasonably required in order to its execution. Hence the intentional killing of an officer so acting under process, in the proper discharge of his duty, must ordinarily warrant a conviction of murder in the first degree. But all the circumstances connected with any particular case are for the jury, having respect to any mistake or misunderstanding of the parties, or irregularity or want of authority in making the arrest, as bearing upon the question of the grade of the offence. And where there is no warrant, or it is so defective in matter of substance as to be void on its face, (in cases where a warrant is necessary,) the officer is not entitled to such peculiar legal protection; and the crime may be reduced to manslaughter where he unwarrantably attempts or persists in making the arrest, and it is committed under such reasonable provocation, or other circumstances, as to bring the case within the statute defining manslaughter. 1 Russell on Crimes, *736, *824; Reg. v. Allen, Steph. Dig. Crim. Law, 394.
But the malicious and premeditated killing of an officer or other person is murder, notwithstanding circumstances of provocation or conflict which might otherwise reduce the offence to manslaughter. State v. Hoyt, 13 Minn. 125, (132;) State v. Gut, 13 Minn. 315, (341.) Where, however, the question of actual malice or premeditation is in dispute, and the question of the grade of the offence or of justification is open for the jury, in the case of attempted arrest, the existence of process or its validity becomes material. In certain aspects of the evidence in the case at bar, therefore, the question whether the warrant under which Washburn assumed to act authorized the arrest of defendant was material; and hence error in the reception of the evidence of the existence or contents of such warrant was substantial and presumptively prejudicial.
It is suggested by the prosecution that the evidence of the threats showing malice and premeditation is undisputed, and hence, for that reason, the warrant was immaterial. It is true this evidence was not contradicted, and the defendant, who was sworn as a witness for himself, made no allusion to or explanation of the threats; but that went rather to the credibility of his testimony, leaving the burden...
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