State v. Speyer
| Decision Date | 31 May 1904 |
| Citation | 81 S.W. 430,182 Mo. 77 |
| Parties | THE STATE v. SPEYER, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court. -- Hon. Jno. W. Wofford, Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
W. F Riggs for appellant.
(1) Can a more horrible insane condition of mind be imagined than that of a person so affected by fright as to be unconscious of his own acts or state? So affected as to be incapable of deliberation? Each and every author on psychology, on mental diseases, and on medical jurisprudence recognizes and affirms, and the many horrible catastrophes attest, that "fright" is a most efficient cause of an insane condition of mind. If the court may eliminate insanity caused and produced by fright, then what avails insanity caused and produced by traumatic injury or disease? Excessive pain or sorrow, pleasure or joy, can entirely prevent thought from taking place. 3 Witthaus & B., Med. Juris., 181. Fear or terror following a criminal assault, or the shock from exposure to some great danger, may cause insanity. 3 Witthaus & B., Med. Juris., 198. (2) If defendant's powers of reflection were suddenly arrested so as to render him incapable of deliberation, how could the act be willful or malicious? State v. McKenzie, 102 Mo. 629; State v. Kotovsky, 74 Mo. 247. (3) There can be no murder in the second degree without premeditation. State v Robinson, 73 Mo. 306; State v. Erb, 74 Mo. 199; State v. Lewis, 74 Mo. 222; State v. Harris, 76 Mo 361.
Edward C. Crow, Attorney-General, and C. D. Corum for the State.
Defendant complains because the court instructed the jury as to murder in the second degree. It seems that the complaint does not arise because of any vice in the instruction itself, but because an instruction on that degree of the offense should not have been given at all. This position is taken on the ground that there can be no degrees of mental accountability. We think that the facts fully justify the court in giving an instruction on murder in the second degree, but, however that may be, appellant is not in condition to complain of the action of the court in giving the instruction, since the record shows that he asked for such an instruction.
From a conviction of murder in the second degree in the criminal court of Jackson county, the defendant appeals.
The account of the killing of his little son, only five years old, by the defendant is in the highest degree tragical.
There is practically little or no controversy as to the facts of the case. The defendant at the time of the homicide was a married man. His family consisted of his wife and two children. Defendant was about thirty-three years old. At and prior to the time of the homicide, upon which this prosecution is based, the defendant was engaged in giving equestrian exhibitions and at this particular time was engaged by the Karnival Krew Association of Kansas City and was giving performances in said city. His wife and little daughter, about eight years of age, were living in New Orleans, Louisiana.
His little son, Freddie Speyer, accompanied his father, and also gave exhibitions of his skill in handling horses. It seems these exhibitions by father and son were given in a tent.
On the sixteenth of July, 1902, and during the carnival, the defendant was standing in front of the tent in which he and his little boy gave their exhibitions, and was announcing that the show would soon begin and was endeavoring to get the crowd to patronize the performances, when Sergeant Martin and officer Jadwin, of the police force of Kansas City, arrested him and told him he would have to go with them to the police station. The defendant requested them to allow him to get his coat which was in the tent. The sergeant directed Jadwin and Wakefield, another policeman, who came up about the time of the arrest, to go into the tent with defendant. They went in and defendant took his coat out of a box and then asked permission to undress his little boy who was lying asleep under a cot in the tent and the officers assented. Defendant then pulled off the boy's shoes and stockings. The defendant then got under the cot and the witness Wakefield thought he was pulling off the boy's waist, and said to defendant, "Hurry up, we can't stay here so long," and just as he said that defendant came out and said, "I have done my do, now you can have me," and then attempted to cut his own throat. Jadwin remarked, "He has cut his boy's throat," and just at that moment he make the stroke at his own throat, when Jadwin struck him and stunned him and Wakefield knocked the knife out of his hand. They then took him to the station and sent the boy to the hospital where he died in a few minutes. The boy's throat was cut. The knife had severed the jugular vein and cut through the windpipe and through all of the blood vessels inside of the neck. The physician, Dr. McDonald, testified that it was all done with one stroke.
Officer Wakefield testified defendant did not seem excited until after he committed the deed, then he was excited.
Officer Jadwin testified that he was stationed near this horse-show tent. Just a short time prior to the killing of his son by defendant, Sergeant Martin came along and said to witness, "Are you busy?" and he answered, "Not especially," and he said, "Come and go with me." We went a short distance and we came to two ladies and a little girl, and the sergeant spoke to them, and said, "Go ahead," and when they came to where defendant Speyer was, they said, "There he is." The officers went up to him and told him they wanted him, and he said, "Very well." Then Jadwin touched defendant on the arm and said, "Come on," and he said, "I want to get my coat." They then went into the tent and defendant called to the little boy and said, and said, "I guess he is asleep." He said, "I want to undress him." It was then about nine o'clock at night. Jadwin said, "Isn't there anybody to attend to your little boy but yourself when you are gone," and he said, "I am all." Jadwin then said, "Very well then, you can undress him." He took off his shoes and stockings and opened the waist. He sat there a little while, then he stooped when he got up to his neck, and then straightened up and did something with his right hand I thought was unusual. Then he stooped down further again and commenced to work again at this collar and about that time said, "My wife has forsaken me, I am alone, this is my job;" then he slipped his hand down on his little boy's throat like this, he was over him and, just as he did that, he motioned with his hand and swung out and said, "Now you can have me, I have done my work," and then attempted to cut his own throat, whereupon the officer struck him and he stumbled, and Jadwin said to Wakefield, "He has killed his little boy, and is trying to kill himself." They grabbed him and forced him to the entrance, and the sergeant and Wakefield took charge of him while Jadwin went to the little boy and secured the knife, which was exhibited to him on the trial, identified and admitted in evidence. The defendant seemed rather deliberate, cool and solemn. Just before the sergeant arrested defendant, a crowd began to collect around the door of the tent, and Mrs. Reed said to defendant, "Don't you open your mouth." She was excited and spoke in a commanding way. She said, "You keep your mouth shut, I don't want you to say a word, we know all about it." Another lady who came with Mrs. Reed commenced to cry and said to defendant, "you have ruined my little girl." They both spoke in a loud excited tone; there were probably from twenty-five to fifty people crowding around. This officer stated that defendant's actions were suspicious. He says, On cross-examination this officer said he would not be positive as to what defendant said, but he thought he said, He may have said, "My wife is away from me." He stated further that prior to the arrest the sergeant asked defendant if he knew Mrs. Tennis's little girl, pointing to her, and he said he had seen her playing around there that evening.
The officer testified to a statement made to him by defendant while in his charge, in which defendant said he couldn't bear to leave this little boy. "I thought they were going to hang or mob me and I wanted to talk with him." "If my throat hadn't been so tough, I would have killed myself." A statement made by defendant while under arrest in the prosecuting attorney's office was read in evidence, over the exception of his counsel that the same was not voluntary.
Sergeant Martin corroborated the other officers about the details of the arrest of defendant at the request of Mrs. Tennis. He adds that he asked defendant if he had seen the little girl of Mrs. Tennis and he said he had. He says the crowd continued to gather around while Mrs. Reed and Mrs. Tennis were talking and crying.
Henry Stone, a reporter for the Journal, testified he was...
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