State v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 12 February 1895 |
| Citation | 29 S.W. 598,126 Mo. 531 |
| Parties | The State v. Taylor, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from St. Louis Criminal Court. -- Hon.Henry L. Edmunds Judge.
(1) The indictment charges an absurdity. It alleges that the pistol was loaded with "one leaden bullet," and that with said pistol so loaded the defendant shot Tobe Carlyle and inflicted two mortal wounds, from which he died. ""State v. Gray, 21 Mo. 492; ""State v Edwards, 70 Mo. 480; ""State v. Flint, 62 Mo. 393. (2) The evidence of the coroner's stenographer was inadmissible. (3) As explanatory of his being armed with a pistol at the time of the homicide, it was error to refuse to allow defendant to show that his life had been threatened by Alfred Kearney and thus under section 3502, Revised Statutes 1889, defendant was authorized by law to carry such weapon. (4) The definition of the term "deliberation" was not in accord with the definition of that word as given by this court in other cases, and was misleading to the jury and erroneous. ""State v. Kotovsky, 74 Mo. 247; ""State v. Ellis, 74 Mo. 207; ""State v. Curtis, 70 Mo. 597. (5) In the definition of "premeditation" the word "before-hand" or some word expressing the same meaning was omitted, and thus, if the jury believed the defendant thought of the killing after it was done, they were, in effect, told that it constituted premeditation. ""State v. Mitchell, 64 Mo. 191; ""State v. Lane, 64 Mo. 319; ""State v. Dearing, 65 Mo. 530; ""State v. Lewis, 74 Mo. 222; ""State v. Ellis, 74 Mo. 207; ""State v. Harris, 76 Mo. 361; ""State v. Landgraf, 91 Mo. 97. (6) The court did not fully instruct the jury upon the law of the case. The defendant testified that he suspicioned his wife of unfaithfulness, and of being intimate with other men, and where he found her under circumstances which convinced him of her guilt he became excited and chided Carlyle with having debauched his wife. That he had never met Carlyle before, but had heard of him in connection with his wife, and that the quarrel and subsequent homicide arose from these facts. The court should have instructed the jury upon this theory of the case, even if the defendant did go further and testify that Carlyle fired the first shot and that he, Taylor, acted in self-defense. (7) The court should have granted a new trial upon the affidavit showing that Clyde Taylor, the ten year old son, had committed perjury through the influence of his mother and aunt.
""R. F. Walker, Attorney General, and ""C. O. Bishop for the state.
(1) The indictment is sufficient, and is in the form so often approved; there is no error apparent upon the record. (2) There was no testimony admitted over the objection of the appellant, which was incompetent or in any case prejudicial to him. And the only testimony offered by him and ruled out by the court was grossly incompetent: ""First. Because it was immaterial whether any person other than the deceased had threatened the appellant's life; and, ""second, it was wholly immaterial why he carried a revolver. (3) The instructions covered all the law of the case, and were such as have been so often approved. (4) The affidavits filed by the appellant in support of his motion for new trial are all (except his own and his attorney's) intended to impeach the boy, Clyde Taylor. It is the established rule in this state that newly discovered evidence which is merely calculated to contradict that given on the trial, or to impeach a witness for the state, is not such as is contemplated by the statute, and will not work a reversal. ""State v. Howell, 117 Mo. 307; ""State v. Welsor, 117 Mo. 570. But a review of these affidavits will disclose that they are wholly unworthy of consideration by this court as ground for reversal. (5) The court instructed the jury on murder in the first and second degrees, and necessary self-defense, competency of defendant as a witness, credibility of witnesses and reasonable doubt. No instructions were asked by appellant, and, therefore, the court did not err in refusing any.
The defendant was indicted at the May term, 1893, of the criminal court of the city of St. Louis, for the murder of Tobe Carlyle in the city of St. Louis, March 13, 1893. He was duly arraigned at the October term, 1893, and a plea of not guilty entered in his behalf, and he was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree.
The testimony on behalf of the state tended to show, substantially, the following: The defendant, a negro man, was a barber by occupation, with a wife, and a son nine years old; they had been living some little time with his wife's sister at 1533 Gratiot street, St. Louis; defendant was of intemperate habits and frequently quarreled with his wife, and, finally, left her about a month before the homicide. The sister-in-law, one Ida Anderson, unmarried, maintained herself by washing and ironing and by furnishing meals to Pullman employees on trains running into the city. The deceased was a young negro man, porter of a chair car on the Chicago & Alton railroad and lived in Chicago; he had been running into St. Louis about a week, and, a few days before the homicide, had been brought to Ida Anderson's by one of her regular patrons, who was a cousin of his; and, on the morning of the homicide, he made his second call at the house, having come in on his train that morning; he came in late, his train being behind time, and when he reached the house he found Ida Anderson ironing; she stopped her work and got breakfast for him.
After eating his breakfast, he put on his hat, took up his overcoat and lighted a cigar. Just then the appellant came up the stairway leading to the room where the meal had been served, and called out his little boy. The boy hung back, but appellant called to him: "Come here, Clyde; your papa didn't come here to hurt you; he only came here to hurt some of the damned sons of bitches that's hunting around your mother." Deceased started down the stairs, but appellant barred the passage by placing his arm across and seizing the banister. Deceased said: Appellant replied: "No, I don't intend for you to come out, you son of a bitch; I'm going to kill you." Ida Anderson stepped forward to pacify him, and at that moment appellant fired. Deceased fell immediately back into the room, and appellant stepped into the room and fired at him the second time as he was down. A third shot was fired and the bullet went into the wall. Appellant left the house immediately, carrying with him the overcoat of the deceased. When the officers reached the house, after the shooting, deceased was in a sitting position, his back against the wall, between a bed and a chair; his hat was on his head, his eyes open and the cigar between his teeth.
The autopsy disclosed two bullet wounds, either of which was necessarily fatal, and producing death almost instantly. One wound was in the median line of the throat, under the chin, and was powder burned, the bullet ranging downward, passing through the right lung and lodging in the back between the first and second ribs. The second wound was on the right side of the head, three inches above the right ear, ranging diagonally across the skull, and lodging in the left lobe of the brain. In the opinion of the medical expert the wound in the head was the first received.
It appeared that when deceased came to the house he had a revolver in his overcoat pocket, its striking the frame of the bed calling the woman's attention to it, and he took it out and showed it to them. It was a small affair, belonging to a woman in Chicago; was not loaded, and he took it apart to show the woman how it worked. This revolver was picked up from the floor near deceased, after the shooting, and turned over by the police to the coroner, and it was unloaded at the time.
The appellant was arrested by an officer, who started in pursuit from the scene, a short time after the shooting, several blocks away. When overtaken by the officer, he said: "I guess I know what you got me for." He turned over his weapon to the officer and was taken to the station. The son of appellant testified as an eyewitness, and in every particular corroborated the testimony of Ida Anderson, and was subjected to a long and rigid cross-examination.
On the part of appellant, there was testimony to the effect that, though given to liquor, his general reputation for peace and quiet was good; also, testimony to the effect that his nine year old son (the witness for the state) had a bad reputation, but that his veracity had not been questioned; and there was some little testimony that Ida Anderson's reputation for truthfulness was not good.
The appellant, testifying in his own behalf, gave this version of the homicide: He went to the house of his sister-in-law that morning to see his little boy, whom he had not seen for several days; as he went up the steps his sister-in-law saw him and cried out, "Oh, Grace, Grace! here is Will" (Grace being appellant's wife), and at this exclamation the wife opened the door of a room at the head of the stairs and looked out; she was clad only in her chemise, and behind her was the outline of a form, which appellant took to be that of a man; the sister-in-law exclaimed "You yellow son of a bitch, don't you come up here?" and undertook to shove him back; he retorted, "Now you can't say you're not making a whore of my wife," and they began quarreling. Then deceased came out, followed by the wife, deceased...
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