State v. Wright
| Decision Date | 11 July 1960 |
| Docket Number | No. 47232,No. 2,47232,2 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Jessie WRIGHT, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Robert A. McIlrath, Flat River, for appellant.
John M. Dalton, Atty. Gen., J. Burleigh Arnold, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
Jessie Wright was charged in the Circuit Court of St. Francois County with murder in the first degree in having shot and killed Thomas J. Mann on February 4, 1958. Tried by a jury, she was found guilty of murder in the second degree, and her punishment fixed at ten years' imprisonment in the penitentiary; judgment and sentence accordingly, from which she has appealed.
The points raised on this appeal assign error in the refusal of two instructions, the allegedly repetitious propounding of prejudicial questions to defendant by the prosecutor, and in permitting cross-examination of defendant's husband on matters not covered by his direct examination. No challenge is made of the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict.
Defendant admittedly killed Mann about midday on the date in question by shooting him with her husband's .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver as he sat in the driver's seat of his Chevrolet car while parked on a little-traveled country road. Defendant had accompanied Mann to this place as his guest-passenger, and the shooting occurred within minutes after their arrival. She sought to justify the killing as having been committed in the necessary defense of her person in repelling an assault upon her by deceased with intent to rape or do great bodily harm. The court instructed on the law of self-defense, but defendant also asked an instruction on manslaughter which was refused. Whether the court should have instructed on the latter subject is the controlling question presented on this appeal.
The evidence was such as to have warranted the jury in finding these to be the facts: Defendant is a married woman, and lived with her husband and daughter near the town of Esther. Mann was also married, and lived with his some three or four miles distant from the Wright home. The ages of the principals do not affirmatively appear, but it is inferable that they were middle aged. Defendant had known the deceased for four or five years, and, except for the last six months of that period, had been engaging in sexual intercourse with him at intervals ranging from once a week to once a month. Defendant testified these relations had their inception at the point of a revolver held on her by Mann; that notwithstanding her desire and efforts to terminate such extramarital relations, they were continued because of threats to her person ('If I didn't do as he said, he wouldn't hesitate to kill me'), and because he threatened to tell her husband, her daughter, and the community what had been going on. All the while he continued to force his attentions upon her. The latter included persistent pursuit on his part by personal contact, letters, telephone calls, etc., the details of which need not be repeated. Rumors reached her husband, who took steps looking toward a divorce. Defendant did not want a divorce, but in the negotiations in that connection defendant made full disclosure to her husband (as well as his attorney) of her improper conduct with Mann for approximately four years, explained its origin and her reason for its continued existence as hereinabove related, and promised she would not see Mann, or any longer continue the affair, she being no longer afraid of him. This was on or about January 10th preceding the killing. Her husband accepted her explanation and promise, and they left the attorney's office together, and within three or four days they proceeded to St. Louis, and to the offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and exhibited certain threatening letters defendant had received from Mann. The FBI referred them to the postal authorities, to whom the letters were delivered, but the latter took no action in the matter.
On the day in question defendant was at the farm of her mother-in-law, Mary Wright, in a remote section of St. Francois County. She had been called there to assist in taking care of her ill mother-in-law. In packing in preparation for the stay at Mary Wright's, defendant 'slipped' her husband's .38 revolver into her effects, and took it with her 'for protection,' as she had done on a prior occasion. She had not had a date with, nor been in the company of Mann since the preceding August, or a period of practically six months, during which time she had successfully avoided him.
About 9 o'clock on the morning in question, Mann drove up to Mary Wright's gate and blew the horn of his car. Defendant went outside and talked to Mann, who told her to get in the car, that he wanted to talk to her. She told him no, she didn't want to talk to him, and didn't want to have any more to do with him, to which Mann replied that she should meet him up on the road and talk to him; that 'I'd better talk to him or I'd be sorry.' Whereupon she returned to the house and continued to do general homework for about an hour, and then went outside and saw Mann's car parked some distance away 'up on the road on this side of the church'; that she went across the field to go up where he was 'to talk to him * * * to tell him to leave me alone, that I told Tony everything--all about everything.'
She further testified that when she came across the field he said she should get in the car, and talk to him; that she did get in, and he started the car and headed east; that the tried to get out, but he wouldn't stop; that he drove about four miles and parked on a road in an isolated area, the nearest house being a half mile away.
There were no other eyewitnesses so we are limited to defendant's account of the facts immediately surrounding the killing, as follows: They sat there for four or five minutes during the course of which time Mann unzipped his pants and asked her to have some wine (he usually kept a bottle under his seat), and either put, or attempted to put (the record is both ways) his arm around her. He told her he had been at that place before; that he had brought her there for a purpose, and he intended to get...
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