The State v. Goddard

• Citation: 62 S.W. 697,162 Mo. 198
• Parties: THE STATE v. GODDARD, Appellant
• Decision Date: 23 April 1901
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

62 S.W. 697

162 Mo. 198

THE STATE v. GODDARD, Appellant

Supreme Court of Missouri, Second Division

April 23, 1901

Appeal from Cole Circuit Court. -- Hon. D. W. Shackleford, Judge.

Affirmed.

I. N Watson, W. S. Pope, F. P. Walsh and F. E. Luckett for appellant.

(1) On January 30, 1899, the State, over the objection and exception of defendant, dismissed said cause pending in Cass county Missouri, and the judgment recited that he be discharged and that he go hence without day. This was a judgment discharging defendant from said cause, and he could plead same in bar of any other proceedings by the State. 1 Chitty's Crim. Law 461; Rogers v. Gosnell, 51 Mo. 468. (2) It was the rule of law in this State, until the adoption of the present Constitution of the State of Missouri in 1875, that where a person was indicted for murder in the first degree and was put upon his trial and convicted of murder in the second degree, and new trial ordered at this instance, he could not legally be put upon his trial again upon the charge of murder in the first degree. State v. Ross, 29 Mo. 32. To the same effect see the following authorities: People v. Gilmore, 4 Cal. 376; State v. Hornsby, 5 La. Ann. 588; Slaughter v. State, 6 Humph. 413; Jones v. State, 13 Tex. 184; Hunt v. State, 25 Miss. 381; Bish. Com. Law, sec. 676; State v. Ball, 27 Mo. 327. When defendant was tried for murder in the first degree and the jury found him guilty of murder in the second degree, that operated as an acquittal of murder in the first degree, and he can not, therefore, be prosecuted again for the same offense without violating the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which declares that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law. And the statute of the State of Missouri (section 2369, Revised Statutes 1899), expressly provides that, "Upon an indictment for an offense consisting of different degrees, as prescribed by this law, the jury may find the accused not guilty of the offense charged in the indictment, and may find him guilty of any degree of such offense inferior to that charged in the indictment," etc. This is an express legislative declaration that where a jury finds defendant guilty of a lesser degree of crime than charged in the indictment it acquits him of the higher crime charged, and he can not thereafter be prosecuted for the same offense without violating the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States, supra. In re Bennett, 84 F. 326. (3) But these proceedings also violate the latter clause of section 1, article 14, amendments to the Constitution of the United States, in this, it denies to defendant the equal protection of the laws of the State. Tinsley v. Anderson, 171 U.S. 43, L. C. Rep. 91; Ex parte Ulrich, 42 F. 597; Railroad v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226; County of Santa Clara v. Railroad, 18 F. 385; Railroad v. Beckwith, 129 U.S. 26. (4) In overruling defendant's plea in abatement and motion to discharge him without submitting same to a jury, the court violated his right to trial by jury given by the Constitution of the State of Missouri, and thereby deprived him of his liberty without due process of law and the equal protection of the law guaranteed by article 14, amendment of the Constitution of the United States. (5) Over defendant's objection and exception the State was permitted to prove by witness Seymour that he, with Marie Jackson, were in his room on the floor above the one in which the shooting occurred, and that when they heard the report of the shooting, Marie Jackson exclaimed, "Papa is shot." This was a statement of a third person not in the presence of defendant, and was the rankest hearsay testimony. State v. Brown, 64 Mo. 371. (6) The court erred in excluding the evidence of Gertrude Stewart to the effect she saw cuffs lying near Jackson's body when she went to the door of the room where the shooting occurred. No one was present in the room at time of shooting except defendant and deceased. This evidence corroborated defendant's evidence that there was a scuffle between him and Jackson, and Jackson had his cuffs jerked off in the struggle. (7) The court erred in admitting in rebuttal evidence tending to show that in the fall of 1898 defendant had met wife of deceased out near Rosedale, Kansas. This evidence was not legitimate rebuttal and tended to prove no legitimate issue in the case, and it is rank hearsay testimony. State v. Williams, 121 Mo. 399. (8) If we are wrong in our contention that the judgment dismissing said case in Cass county was a bar to any other proceeding, then Judge George F. Longan was judge of the criminal court of Jackson county, in this case, and the motion to call Judge Longan should have been sustained. If the judgment of the circuit court of Cass county "that defendant go hence without day" be deemed not final, the proceedings had in Jackson county under the second indictment could be nothing more than a continuation of the prosecution begun under the first indictment. There was no new cause of action against defendant set forth in the second indictment. The same corpus delicti was alleged, the crime was alleged to have been committed at the same time and by the same means, and the offense was identical. The decisions are unanimous on the proposition that the trial under the second indictment must be had before the special judge selected to try defendant under the first indictment. Ex parte Clay, 98 Mo. 578; State v. Neiderer, 94 Mo. 79; State v. Hayes, 88 Mo. 344; State v. Sneed, 91 Mo. 552. This is because, as already suggested, where a cause is not dismissed the proceedings under the second indictment are but a continuation of the proceedings under the first. State v. Dougherty, 106 Mo. 187; Sharpe v. Johnson, 76 Mo. 660. The jurisdiction of Judge Longan over the cause was in no wise affected by the reversal of the judgment on the first appeal. State v. Sneed, 91 Mo. 552; State v. Hayes, 88 Mo. 344. And after the re-indictment in Jackson county, it was Judge Longan's duty to preside over the cause. Ex parte Clay, supra; State v. Neiderer, supra. When the jurisdiction of Judge Longan attached in 1897 it continued until the final determination of the cause between the State and defendant. State ex rel. v. Wear, 129 Mo, 627; State v. Noland, 111 Mo. 489; State v. Moberly, 121 Mo. 604; State v. Hayes, 81 Mo. 574; State v. Hayes, 88 Mo. 344; State v. Sneed, 91 Mo. 552; State v. Davidson, 69 Mo. 509; State ex rel. v. Wofford, 111 Mo. 532.

Edward C. Crow, Attorney-General, and Sam B. Jeffries, Assistant Attorney-General, for the State.

GANTT, J. Sherwood, P. J., and Burgess, J., concur.

OPINION

GANTT, J.

On the second day of April, 1897, at the Woodland Hotel in Kansas City, Jackson county, Missouri, Jefferson D. Goddard shot and killed Frederick J. Jackson. On the twentieth day of April, 1897, the grand jury of Jackson county returned an indictment charging Jefferson D. Goddard with murder in the first degree. After a mistrial defendant was, on a second trial in the Jackson County Criminal Court, before Honorable George F. Longan, special judge, convicted of murder in the second degree, and his punishment fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary for the term of sixteen years. On appeal to this court the judgment was reversed and case remanded (146 Mo. 177, 48 S.W. 82) and a change of venue was ordered to Cass county. Afterwards on the twenty-fourth day of January, 1899, the grand jury of Jackson county returned a second indictment against defendant for the same offense, again charging murder in the first degree, and the indictment pending in the circuit court of Cass county was nolled. Judge John W. Wofford disqualified himself and called in Honorable Dorsey W. Shackleford, judge of the Fourteenth judicial circuit, to preside as special judge in the cause. Upon application of the defendant for a change of venue from Jackson county the same was granted and the case was sent to Cole county.

The transcript of the record from Jackson county, together with the various motions made by the defendant's counsel, was filed in the Cole Circuit Court April 20, 1899. On the eighth day of June, 1899, the trial began in the circuit court of Cole county. On the fourteenth day of June, 1899, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree against the defendant, and assessed his punishment at twenty years in the penitentiary. After unsuccessful motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment, defendant has again appealed to this court.

Frederick J. Jackson had lived in Kansas City for about twenty-two years. The record reveals a very pathetic story of how he had begun business in a small way, starting a laundry at 514 Independence avenue; living in rooms over it with his young and devoted wife; how they had struggled and worked together he was a mechanical genius, studying, inventing and perfecting laundry machinery; she helping in extending the business, reading scientific papers to him, night after night, on account of his bad eye-sight; sometimes reading to him out of these scientific and mechanical papers until one o'clock in the morning, papers in which she took no interest, devoting her life to him and her family, which as the years went by increased until there were four girls to bless their happy and prosperous home. As testified to by Dancy, a nephew of Mrs. Jackson, who had worked in the laundry for nine years, and had sustained intimate relations with the Jackson family, up to the time Goddard, the defendant, came between Fred Jackson and his wife, they were a friendly and happy family, as affectionate as could be. She would not eat her meals unless he was with her. It was in the language of ...