State v. Haynes

329 S.W.2d 640, 1959 Mo. LEXIS 684
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedNovember 9, 1959
Docket47274
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 329 S.W.2d 640 (State v. Haynes) 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. Haynes, 329 S.W.2d 640, 1959 Mo. LEXIS 684 (Mo. 1959).

Opinion

DALTON, Judge.

Defendant has appealed from a conviction of murder in the second degree and a sentence of IS years’ imprisonment in the state penitentiary. Two assignments of error are presented. The first is that the information is insufficient to charge an offense and the second is that the trial court erred in not instructing on manslaughter.

As to the first assignment, appellant says the amended information is not “a plain, concise, definite statement of the essential elements of the offense attempted to be charged, as required by Supreme Court Rule 24”; and that it does not “fully inform the appellant of the special character of the charge she was required to defend against, nor is same sufficiently specific to stand as a bar against a further prosecution for the same alleged offense.”

Appellant directs attention to that portion of the amended information which reads as follows: “ * * * that Lora Johnson Haynes * * * on the 25th day of August, 1957, at the County of Jackson, State of Missouri, did then and there wil-fully, feloniously, premeditatedly, deliberately and of her malice aforethought make an assault upon one Bertha Ernestine Moten with a dangerous and deadly weapon, towit, a revolving pistol loaded with gunpowder and leaden balls, then and there inflicting upon the said Bertha Ernestine Moten a mortal wound, and that from said mortal wound the said Bertha Ernestine Moten within one year thereafter, to-wit, on the 25th day of August, 1957, at the County of Jackson and State of Missouri, died; * * *.”

As stated, appellant says that this information does not contain “a plain, concise, definite statement of the essential facts constituting the offenses of first degree murder or second degree murder.” She insists that it “is rambling, indirect, dis-connective, devious, and is anything but plain”; that “it starts out by alleging an assault and ends up by alleging the death of the deceased, but nowhere states that the deceased was shot by the defendant,” nor “that Mrs. Moten died from a gunshot wound”; and that such facts are “left to inference.” Appellant further says “ * * the Amended Information does not charge Mrs. Haynes with shooting Mrs. Moten and does not even state that the inflictioñ of the ‘mortal wound,’ howsoever caused, was wilfull, felonious, premediated, deliberate and of malice aforethought”; that the amended information charges Mrs. Haynes with inflicting a mortal wound upon Mrs. Moten, but does not state how the pistol was used, whether as a bludgeon or for shooting; and that it describes the wound as “mortal” but does not say whether it was caused by a blow or by a gunshot, or state how the death of the deceased was accomplished. Appellant concludes with the statement that “the method and means by which the death of the deceased was effected was not only not plainly and concisely charged, but was not set forth at all.”

Appellant cites Supreme Court Rule 24.01, 42 V.A.M.S.; State v. Reynolds, Mo. App., 274 S.W.2d 514; Ex parte Keet, 315 Mo. 695, 287 S.W. 463; State v. Stringer, *642 357 Mo. 978, 211 S.W.2d 925; State v. Birles, 199 Mo. 263, 97 S.W. 578 and State v. Finn, Mo.Sup., 243 S.W.2d 67. None of these authorities support the conclusion that the information in this case is insufficient to charge the offense of murder in the first degree or to include murder in the second degree, the offense of which appellant was convicted.

Supreme Court Rule 24.01, in part, provides that “the indictment or the information shall he a plain, concise and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged. * * * It need not contain a formal commencement, a formal conclusion or any other matter not necessary to such statement. * * *»

Supreme Court Rule 24.03, in part, provides: “When an indictment or information alleges the essential facts constituting the offense charged but fails to inform the defendant of the particulars of the offense sufficiently to prepare his defense, the court may direct or permit the filing of a bill of particulars. * * * ” And see State v. Bright, Mo.Sup., 269 S.W.2d 615, 619(1).

No such motion or request for a bill of particulars was filed on the part of defendant in this case and, in the trial of the cause, defendant testified in her own behalf that (on the day in question, at the place in question and under circumstances stated by her in her testimony) she fired the shot that killed Mrs. Moten. She further testified that she pointed the gun in question at Mrs. Moten, when $ix or seven feet from her, and pulled the trigger; and that she didn’t, thereafter, stop to see what happened to Mrs. Moten. In view of defendant’s own testimony it is apparent that defendant could not have been misled or prejudiced by the failure of .the information to allege that defendant “did discharge and shoot off” the said weapon, nor was it necessary for the amended information to more particularly allege the exact method and means by which the death of deceased was effected, that is, whether the pistol was used as a bludgeon or for shooting. It did allege a mortal wound was inflicted upon Bertha Ernestine Moten by the use of a dangerous and deadly weapon, to-wit, a revolving pistol loaded with gunpowder and leaden balls and this allegation certainly was intended to mean and did mean that the pistol was “used in the usual method, in the performance of its normal function.”

In the case of State v. Dildine, 330 Mo. 756, 51 S.W.2d 1, 2(1) the court said: “Appellant asserts that the information is uncertain in violation of section 22, article 2, of the Constitution, in that it does not state the nature and cause of the accusation. The exact point is that the information does not with sufficient particularity describe how the offense was committed. It avers that the assault was made with a dangerous and deadly weapon, to wit, a pistol, which might be used in shooting or it might be used as a bludgeon, thus leaving uncertain the manner of the assault. It is urged that the pistol for the purpose of shooting is not a deadly weapon, unless it is loaded with powder and ball. In State v. Clayton, 100 Mo. 516, 13 S.W. 819, 18 Am.St.Rep. 565, an indictment exactly like the present one, with the additional averment that the pistol was loaded with gun powder and leaden balls, was held good against this attack. When an information or indictment charges that an assault with intent to kill is made with a deadly weapon, a pistol, it means that the pistol was used in the usual method, in the performance of its normal function. * * * ”

Section 559.010 RSMo 1949, V.A. M.S., provides that: “every murder which shall be committed by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, * * * shall be deemed murder in the first degree.” It is not an essential element of murder in either degree that the killing was done with a deadly weapon, or any weapon at all, since the crime may be committed with the fist. State v. Beard, 334 Mo. 909, 68 S.W.2d 698, 700(1); State *643 v.

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Bluebook (online)
329 S.W.2d 640, 1959 Mo. LEXIS 684, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-haynes-mo-1959.