The State v. Jones
| Decision Date | 23 December 1918 |
| Citation | 207 S.W. 793,276 Mo. 299 |
| Parties | THE STATE v. WILLIAM DAVID JONES, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Jackson Criminal Court. -- Hon. Ralph S. Latshaw, Judge.
Affirmed.
P. D Clear for appellant.
Frank W. McAllister, Attorney-General, and George V. Berry, Special Assistant Attorney-General.
(1) There was no error in refusal of new trial. No point was saved in regard to the shooting in the court room. State v. Gartrell, 171 Mo. 513; State v. Reeves, 195 S.W. 1031; State v. Douglas, 258 Mo. 299. (2) Instructions offered by appellant were properly refused. They were already covered by instructions given. State v Lewis, 264 Mo. 432; State v. Walker, 232 Mo 264; State v. Wooley, 215 Mo. 680; State v. Sassman, 214 Mo. 730; State v. Atchley, 186 Mo. 195.
The appellant was charged by information in the criminal court of Jackson County, with murder in the first degree, with having shot and killed one Arthur Dorsett, a police officer, August 6, 1917. Upon a trial, he was found guilty of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to fifty years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, from which judgment he appeals.
Several police officers, of which the deceased was one, went to where the appellant, a negro, was boarding, in Kansas City, to get a dog, which it was claimed appellant was improperly refusing to surrender to the owner. When the officers entered the house where the appellant resided and demanded the surrender to them of the dog, or that appellant accompany them to the police station, he ostensibly expressed a willingness to comply with their request by saying: "Wait until I go into the adjoining room and get my coat and hat." He returned at once from the room with a pistol in his hand, and fired at the officers. After shooting Officer Dorsett twice, he shot the other officer, Clifford, and made his escape. The death of Dorsett resulted from the gunshot wounds inflicted by appellant. Soon thereafter, appellant was apprehended in Kansas City, Kansas, and was brought back for trial. His testimony is to the effect that the officers, upon entering the house, began firing at him, and that he shot only in self-defense; that he did not know at the time that they were officers; nor did he understand the purpose for which they demanded that he accompany them to the station.
No brief has been filed on behalf of the appellant. Examining the record, as we are required to do, and reviewing the errors sought to be preserved in the motion for a new trial, we find nothing of such a prejudicial nature as to warrant a reversal. More particularly stated, the information contains all the essential allegations necessary to charge murder in the first degree; no material error was committed in the admission or exclusion of testimony; the instructions given by the court correctly presented every phase of the case authorized by the testimony; the refusal of the court to grant two instructions requested by appellant was not error, in that they had been fully covered by instructions given embodying a correct statement of the facts, which appellant's instructions did not present; nor was the appellant, for a like reason, entitled to the instructions set forth in his motion for a new trial, and which it is insisted the court should have given on its own motion. [State v. Shellman, 192 S.W. l. c. 437.]
An unusual incident...
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