State v. Weltz

• Citation: 155 Minn. 143,193 N.W. 42
• Decision Date: 06 April 1923
• Docket Number: No. 23073.,23073.
• Parties: STATE v. WELTZ.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

155 Minn. 143

193 N.W. 42

STATE

v.WELTZ.

No. 23073.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 6, 1923.

Appeal from District Court, Ramsey County; O. B. Lewis, Judge.

Frank Weltz was convicted of murder in the third degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

To establish the charge of murder in the third degree, the state need not show that defendant was inherently of depraved mind. The nature of the act causing the death of another, and the circumstances attending it, may be prima facie evidence that the doer of the act was a man of depraved mind.

The evidence justified the jury in finding from defendant's act alone, viewed in the light of the attending circumstances, that he was a man of ‘depraved mind,’ within the meaning of section 8606, Gen. St. 1913, defining third degree murder. Drill & Drill, of St. Paul, for appellant.

C. L. Hilton, Atty. Gen., Jas. E. Markham, Asst. Atty. Gen., and R. D. O'Brien, Co. Atty., and R. F. Schroeder, Asst. Co. Atty., both of St. Paul, for the state.

LEES, C.

Defendant was indicted upon a charge of murder in the third degree, found guilty, and appealed from the judgment pronounced by the court. Two questions are presented for determination: (1) Must there be proof that one charged with third degree murder was inherently of depraved mind, or may the act and the attending circumstances be evidence enough of mental depravity? (2) Did defendant's acts and the attending circumstances evidence a depraved mind?

1. At common law, every homicide, not excusable or justifiable, was either murder or manslaughter. If the slayer was actuated by malice, express or implied, he was guilty of murder; in the absence of malice, the crime was manslaughter. Archbold's Crim. Plead., Evid. & Prac. 853; 1 Russell, Law of Crimes, 655, 780; Wharton, Homicide, §§ 1-3. The term ‘malice’ was not employed to denote ill will towards the victim. It was used in a broader sense. If a homicide was attended with such circumstances as are the ordinary symptoms of a wicked or depraved spirit, regardless of social duty and fatally bent on mischief, malice was inferred. The malice which distinguished murder from other species of homicide was not limited to particular ill will against the person slain. If there was a general malice or depraved inclination to mischief, fall where it may, and the act was unlawfull, attended with probable serious danger to others, and done with a mischievous intent to hurt people, the homicide was murder. 1 Russell, Law of Crimes, 757. Common illustrations were the intentional driving of a carriage in among a crowd at a furious speed, resulting in the death of one in the crowd, or the discharging of a gun among a multitude of people and killing one of them. Mere negligence would not do. There must be wicked negligence, so great as to satisfy the jury that the accused had a wicked mind, in the sense that he was indifferent to the safety of others, reckless, and careless whether or not he caused the death of a human being. Archbold's Crim. Plead., Evid & Prac. 837.

In this state of the law, New York, in 1829, adopted a statute defining murder and manslaughter, respectively. The statute is quoted in Darry v. People, 10 N. Y. at bottom of page 122. It declared that the killing of a human being should be murder when perpetrated by an act imminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual. Our statute defining murder in the third degree (section 8606, G. S. 1913) is virtually a reproduction of the New York statute. In Darry v. People, supra, the court said there was no doubt as to the nature of the cases contemplated by the statute. They were cases of depraved and reckless conduct, aimed at no one in particular, but endangering indiscriminately the lives of many and resulting in the death of one or more. Page 146. The statute was directed at acts perpetrated with a full consciousness that they were calculated to put the lives of others in jeopardy. Such acts evince a reckless disregard of human life, fully equivalent to a direct design to destroy it. Page 148. The act must evince a depraved mind, regardless of human life. These words are exactly descriptive of general malice. They define general recklessness. The act by which death is effected must evince a disregard of human life. Page 156. Wisconsin has long had a similar statute. Section 4339, Wis. Stat. 1921. In Hogan v. State, 36 Wis. 226, the court said of it that the qualities of the act, as imminently dangerous and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, are to be found in the act itself and the circumstances of its commission.

Speaking of our own statute, in State v. Lowe, 66 Minn. 296, 68 N. W. 1094, it was said it was intended to cover cases where reckless, mischievous, or wanton acts were committed without special regard to their effect on a particular person, but with a reckless disregard of whether they injured one person or another, and in State v. Nelson, 148 Minn. 285, 181 N. W. 850, that it involves an unintentional killing, without a special design upon a particular person by an act imminently dangerous to others, evincing a mind depraved and regardless of human life. It seems reasonably clear that the statute was intended to formulate the doctrine of the common law that, although malice was an essential element of the crime of murder, it need not be proved directly, but might be inferred from the perpetration of such an act as is described in the statute. It is a principle of universal application that a sane man is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequence of his own voluntary acts. In a moral sense the unintentional taking of human life by an act evincing a wanton and reckless disregard of life in general is less wicked than the premeditated taking of the life of a particular individual. In either case it is murder, but the statute makes a distinction as to the degree of guilt.

To constitute murder in the first degree, there must be premeditation. Section 8603, G. S. 1913. In State v. Lautenschlager, 22 Minn. 514, an instruction that the law presumes a premeditated design from the naked fact of the killing when coupled with the statement that, if explanatory circumstances are shown, they are to be considered in arriving at the intent and design, was upheld. This was referred to with approval in State v. Prolow, 98 Minn. 459, 108 N. W. 873, where the earlier decisions touching the point are reviewed. In State v. Wormack, 150 Minn. 249, 184 N. W. 970, following State v. Brown, 41 Minn. 319, 43 N. W. 69, it was held that first degree murder might be found from the mere fact and circumstances of the killing.

A parity of reasoning leads to the conclusion that the nature of an act and the circumstances attending it may be prima facie evidence that the doer of the act was in fact a man of depraved mind. What more persuasive proof of the quality of mind can there be than the acts which the mind has prompted? If the act inevitably endangers human life, as every sane man must know, is it not in and of itself convincing proof that the doer had a depraved inclination to mischief, that he had no regard for social duty, that he was generally reckless of life-possessed, in short, of a depraved mind within the meaning of the statute? It is our view that these questions must be answered in the affirmative. This view finds support in the cases. State v. Lowe, supra; State v. Nelson, supra; State v. Stokely, 16 Minn. 282 (Gil. 249, 258); Darry v. People, supra; Hogan v. State, supra; Johnson v. State, 129 Wis. 146, 108 N. W. 55,5 L. R. A. (N. S.) 809,9 Ann. Cas. 923;Washington v. State, 60 Ala. 10-14, 31 Am. Rep. 28;Alvarez v. State, 41 Fla. 532-539,27 South. 40;Longinotti v. People, 46 Colo. 173, 102...