State v. Collins

86 Mo. 245
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedApril 15, 1885
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 86 Mo. 245 (State v. Collins) 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. Collins, 86 Mo. 245 (Mo. 1885).

Opinion

Norton, J.

— The defendant was indicted in the circuit court of Pike county, at its September term, 1883, for murder in the first degree, in killing Owen Utterback. He was put upon his trial at the March term, 1884, of said court, resulting in his conviction of the crime as charged. This judgment, on defendant’s appeal to this court, was reversed, and the cause was remanded, and defendant being again put upon his trial, at the March term, 1885, of said court, he was again convicted of murder in the first degree, and the cause is before us, the second time, on defendant’s appeal.

It is objected that the’ record proper does not show that any orders were made by the court between the first and second trials, and that it fails to show that the indictment was signed by the prosecuting attorney.. This objection is not well taken; the record shows that the indictment was returned into court by the grand jury, [248]*248at its September term, 1883, and that it is signed by Edward T. Smith, prosecuting attorney; it further shows that the court convened on the second day of March, 1885, and that the trial of defendant was commenced on the tenth day of said month, and was adjourned, from day to day, till the twelfth day of said month, when the jury returned their verdict.

It appears, from the record, that the court began its session on the second day of March, 1885, and that this cause was placed on the docket for Tuesday, the tenth of March, to which time the subpoenas for the witnesses were returnable; that a venire for a jury was ordered, returnable on Friday, the sixth of March, at which time the persons summoned were examined, touching their qualifications as jurors, and forty persons were found by the court qualified to serve as jurors, a list of whom was furnished to defendant, on Saturday morning, the seventh; that on the tenth of March, the day the cause was docketed for trial, the said jurors appeared in court, and the state, as well as defendant, proceeded to make their peremptory challenges, neither the state nor defendant, nor his counsel, expressing any desire to make any further examination of said jurors. It is insisted that the action of the court was erroneous, in procuring a panel of forty qualified jurors, on the sixth of March, when the cause could not be tried till the tenth, inasmuch as the jurors, who might have been qualified on the sixth, might have become disqualified between the sixth and tenth of March. We are of the opinion that this point is not well taken, inasmuch as when said jurors appeared on the tenth, defendant or his counsel, if they had so desired, could have examined them to 'ascertain the fact whether they, or any of them, had become disqualified by anything done or said between the said two dates.

The course pursued by the circuit judge is not open to the objection made, and the adoption of any other course would lead to confusion in the orderly conduct of [249]*249the business in such courts, and be subject to the same objection here made. Suppose that the venire in question had been returned on the tenth, the day the cause stood for trial, and the court had then found a panel of forty persons, who were competent to serve as jurors ; the defendant, under the law, would then have been entitled to a list of such jurors, forty-eight hours before the trial, thus necessitating its postponement for two days, and when called, after the expiration of forty-eight hours, the objection that the jurors who had been found qualified two days before might have become disqualified in the interim, might be made with as much propriety and reason as it is now made to the aption that was taken. When a person stands indicted for murder in the first degree, the legislature has wisely provided that he shall not be put upon his trial until he has been furnished, forty-eight hours before the trial, with a list of forty qualified j urors. Defendant has had the full benefit of this .humane provision, such a list having been furnished seventy-two hours before he was called upon t<r submit himself to a trial.

It is also insisted, that the judgment should be reversed on account of the separation of the jury. It appears from the affidavit of one of the deputy sheriffs, having the jury in charge, that, during the progress of .the trial, at the request of the judge, he took one of the jurors into the jury room adjoining the court room to answer a call of nature. It also appears from the affidavit ,of another deputy, that he took three of the jurors from the grand jury room, where he had them locked up, to the privy back of the jail, and took them back as soon as they came out; that during their absence the other jurors were locked up in the jury room, which adjoined the ■court room, and which was also locked up ; that nothing was said to these jurors about the trial. To reverse a judgment for such a separation as this, would be trifling with the administration of the law, and such action is in no [250]*250way authorized by the ruling made in this case, when it was first before this court, the record in that case showing that one of the jurors was permitted to go to his home and remain all night, and that other jurors separated themselves from their fellows on two occasions.

No objection was made to the panel of jurors, nor to the manner of its selection, till after verdict, and the objection then made in the motion for new trial, that the jury was not summoned from the body of Pike county, came too late. State v. Jones, 61 Mo. 232; State v. Ward, 74 Mo. 253.

The instructions given by the court, defining murder in the first degree, and also the instruction embracing the law of self-defence, are the same as when the case was here before, and are such as have received heretofore the sanction of this eourt, and put the case, under the evidence, fairly to the jury.

It is also insisted, that the court erred in refusing to-instruct the jury as to murder in the second degree. The instruction was properly refused, as the facts in evidence show the offence to be either murder in the-first degree or nothing. The evidence shows that deceased was killed between twelve and one o’clock, while-digging in a pond near his residence in Pike county, by a ball discharged from a gun, which passed through the heart and both lungs of deceased. No one witnessed the homicide except the defendant, Remasters, a hired hand of deceased, who was in a barn near by, and Mrs. Utter-back, who was at the residence, a short distance off,, heard the report of the gun and deceased cry out, “ Oh ! Oh!”. Remasters ran out and found deceased lying-about fifteen feet from where he had been at work, and Mrs. Utterback also came out and found her husband dead. About thirty-seven paces from where the body lay, near a hedge and rail fence, the tracks of a man were-found. One of the tracks appeared to have been made by a boot with the heel off. The tracks went in a north [251]*251and south direction, terminating at the fence. Between the fence and the body, a piece of- powder-stained cotton-flannel gun-patching was found.

The morning of the twenty-fourth of September, defendant was seen going in the direction of Utterback’s with a gun on his shoulder. When the witness who saw him attempted to overtake him, he quickened his pace.. The night alter the homicide, several parties went to the house of defendant and arrested him. One of his boot heels was off and his gun was found to be loaded with, the same kind of patching that had been found near the scene of the homicide.

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Bluebook (online)
86 Mo. 245, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-collins-mo-1885.