State v. Billings

41 S.W. 778, 140 Mo. 193, 1897 Mo. LEXIS 224
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedJune 22, 1897
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 41 S.W. 778 (State v. Billings) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Billings, 41 S.W. 778, 140 Mo. 193, 1897 Mo. LEXIS 224 (Mo. 1897).

Opinion

Gantt, P. J.

From a conviction of murder in the second degree in the circuit court of Bollinger county, defendant has appealed.

The evidence tends to prove that on the twenty-fifth day of August, 1894, the defendant and William H. Smith were in a restaurant kept by one Jesse Lutes in the town of Lutesville; that a wordy altercation took place between them; that deceased had an ordinary barlow knife in his hand which he was using in cutting some cheese which he was eating. Defendant arose, and went out into the street or space in .front of the [198]*198restaurant. It was a dark, cloudy and rainy night. After defendant went out deceased followed him to the door and while standing in the door or on the platform in front of it a shot was fired which struck deceased and. he immediately fell, exclaiming that he was killed. Defendant was seen standing in front of the restaurant on the street a few minutes after the shooting and admitted doing the shooting. He had a smoking revolver in his hand and made the remark that he didn’t think Smith, the deceased, would follow him again. Smith died the next morning. The principal plea was that of self-defense; that Smith was a dangerous character and had on several occasions threatened to take defendant’s life, and to avoid such threatened danger defendant had shot and killed him. The motion for a new trial assigned fourteen grounds for setting aside the verdict and discharging the prisoner. This motion perhaps presents the best order in which the various alleged errors can be considered and determined. The motion is as follows:

“1. The court erred in assuming jurisdiction over the person of defendant and over the subject-matter charged in the indictment herein, and in overruling defendant’s several pleas and motions filed and submitted to the court at the last term of this court, and in refusing to hear the proofs offered by defendant in support of said pleas and motions and heard by the court at said last term.
“2. The court erred in overruling defendant’s motion to be discharged from further pleading herein, filed at this term, and in refusing to consider the proofs of defendant, offered and by the court heard, on said motion.
“3. The court erred in permitting over defendant’s objection, the jury to hear incompetent, irrelevant and illegal evidence offered by the State, and in exclud[199]*199ing and in refusing to permit the jury to hear competent, relevant and legal evidence offered by the defendant.
“4. The court erred in refusing to permit the defendant to cross-examine the material witnesses on the part of the State whose names were indorsed by the grand jury on the indictment herein and not called by the State to testify herein, and also in refusing to permit defendant to cross-examine the witnesses for the State summoned by the State and not called by the State to testify.
“5. The court erred in compelling defendant on his calling the witnesses aforesaid to examine them in chief as his own, when their names were returned on said indictment and on said summons or subpoenas for the State, as witnesses adverse to and against him.
“6. The court erred in permitting the State to withhold from and not allow the defendant to meet the witnesses against him face to face at and during the trial, and particularly all of those indorsed on the indictment by the grand jury.
“7. The court erred in giving the jury illegal instructions on the part of the State and in refusing to give to the jury proper and legal instructions suggested and offered by the defendant.
‘8. The verdict of the jury is against the evidence and the weight of the evidence; against the law and the instructions of the court.
• “9.- The court erred in failing to give to the defendant a speedy and public trial before an impartial jury.
“10. The court erred in compelling defendant to go to trial before a jury of said county after the court, upon the proofs heard by the court, had adjudged that the inhabitants of said county were prejudiced against him.
[200]*200“11. The court erred in that the judge sitting at the trial was, in defendant’s application for a change of venue for the trial of defendant upon the first indictment returned herein at the September term, 1894, of which the indictment here is but the same charge of the same offense and in the same language, charged on the oath of- the defendant with being prejudiced against defendant.
“12. The court erred in putting defendant upon his trial on the indictment herein, in that defendant had procured his change of venue for the trial of the offense with which he is charged in the indictment herein, being the same offense contained in the indictment presented at the September term, 1894, of this court, and the court and the State thus wrongfully and illegally deprived the defendant of another change of venue, and of a fair and impartial trial and of an impartial jury to try the issues herein.
“13. Because the court had no jurisdiction of the person of defendant nor of the subject-matter of the offense charged.
“14. The court erred in refusing to set aside the change of venue on defendant’s application máde at the March term, 1895, of this court, and in permitting the State by means of the present indictment to debar defendant of a trial, speedy, public and before an im-' partial jury in a county wherein the inhabitants were without prejudice.”

The motion in arrest is as follows: “The grand jury who found the indictment had no legal authority to inquire into the offense charged, by reason of not being within the jurisdiction of the court, in that the offense charged was then pending for trial, under and upon a valid indictment found by the grand jury impaneled in and for said Bollinger county at the September term, 1894, of this court, in the circuit court [201]*201of Butler county in said State, the said last court having the exclusive jurisdiction of the person and subject-matter. The verdict is insufficient, as well as all of the records of the court preceding said verdict are insufficient to sustain a judgment.”

I. Having gone through this record we glean that the first, second, twelfth and thirteenth grounds of the motion for new trial relate to the refusal of the circuit court of Bollinger county to sustain the plea in abatement and discharge the prisoner. A rehearsal of the essential facts is necessary to a clear comprehension of the point involved in these assignments.

Defendant was indicted in the Bollinger circuit court at the September term, 1894, and by agreement the cause was continued to an adjourned term in December following. At the instance of the defendant it was then continued to the March term, 1895. At the March term, 1895, of the Bollinger circuit court, on the application of defendant under the law as it then existed, a change of venue was granted to the circuit court of Butler county. Defendant being in custody was transferred to the jail of Butler county, and the transcript was filed in the circuit court of said county. At the first term, to wit, the May term of said court, the cause was continued by that court of its own motion to a day in July of that year.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
41 S.W. 778, 140 Mo. 193, 1897 Mo. LEXIS 224, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-billings-mo-1897.