State v. Steinemann

• Decision Date: 23 April 1901
• Citation: 162 Mo. 188,62 S.W. 694
• Parties: STATE v. STEINEMANN.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

62 S.W. 694

162 Mo. 188

STATE v. STEINEMANN.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

April 23, 1901.

ASSAULT WITH INTENT TO KILL — INDICTMENT — DEADLY WEAPON — MANNER OF USE.

Where an indictment for assault with a deadly weapon charges that the assault was committed with a pistol, which was a dangerous and deadly weapon, and that it was made feloniously with intent to kill, the indictment was not defective for failure to charge that defendant shot or used the weapon as a club, since, it being alleged that the assault was made with a deadly weapon, the manner in which the assault was made was immaterial.

Appeal from circuit court, Oregon county; W. N. Evans, Judge.

John Steinemann was convicted of assault with intent to kill, and he appeals. Affirmed.

W. F. Durham and S. A. Handy, for appellant. Edward C. Crow, Atty. Gen., for the State.

BURGESS, J.

On the 28th day of February, 1899, the defendant was convicted in the circuit court of Oregon county, and his punishment fixed at two years' imprisonment in the penitentiary under an indictment charging that he, at the "county of Oregon, in and upon one G. M. Cooper feloniously, on purpose, and of his malice aforethought did make an assault, and then and there, on purpose and of his malice aforethought, feloniously assault and wound him, the said G. M. Cooper, with a pistol loaded with leaden balls and gunpowder, which was then and there a deadly and dangerous weapon, which said pistol he, the said John Steinemann, then and there had and held in his hands, with intent him, the said G. M. Cooper, on purpose and of his malice aforethought, feloniously to kill and murder, against the peace and dignity of the state." The case is before us upon defendant's appeal. In the motion in arrest the point is made that the indictment is defective, in that it does not charge that defendant shot or used said pistol as a club, and fails to charge that defendant shot one G. M. Cooper at all. But this was not necessary. The indictment charges that the pistol was a deadly and dangerous weapon, and that the assault was made feloniously with intent to kill; and it makes no difference as to the manner in which the assault was made. State v. Chandler, 24 Mo. 371; State v. Clayton, 100 Mo. 516, 13 S. W. 819; State v. Jones, 86 Mo. 623. There was an abundance of evidence to justify the verdict of the jury, and this objection asserted in the motion for a new trial is entirely without merit. Finding no reversible error in...