State v. Hickman

195 Iowa 765
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedApril 3, 1923
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 195 Iowa 765 (State v. Hickman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Hickman, 195 Iowa 765 (iowa 1923).

Opinion

Preston, C. J,

AYe think it advisable at the start to set out the evidence in a general way, so that the fifty points made may be better understood.

The crime charged in the indictment was committed late in the afternoon or in the early evening of February 12, 1921, in Page County, at a little town named Bingham, six or seven miles southeast of Shenandoah, on the railroad. An hour or two before the shooting, there was a crap game at the railway Y, near the depot in Shenandoah, in which a number of men participated. "While the crap game was going on, the defendants came, and, at the point of revolvers, forced the crowd of men who were participating in the game to line up, with their heels to the rail, and took from the persons of different ones considerable sums of money. The defendants told the other parties that they were not going to take any chances, and that [767]*767they would drop the first fellow that moved. Thereafter, defendants were seen on the way to Bingham. A short time after the robbery, some of those who were present informed the city marshal of the occurrence, and about half an hour thereafter, the deceased, Albert Patton, who was a deputy sheriff, was also informed of the transaction, and requested his informant to go with him, to identify the men who had perpetrated the holdup. Patton telephoned to Bingham, to have men there arrest the parties and hold them until he should come. Patton and two or three others took the 6:54 train at Shenandoah, arriving at Bingham a few minutes after 7 o ’clock. As the train approached the depot in Bingham, defendants were seen running ahead of the train, along the west side of the track, towards some tie piles, a short distance northwest of the depot. About the time the train passed the tie piles, or soon after, and before the train stopped, the city marshal said to Patton, “Here they are, Bert,” and Patton came across from the east side of the train and jumped off on the southeast side of the station and right-hand side of the train. The marshal says further:

“After Bert got off, I got off on the same side. Before I got off, I heard shots fired. Just as I jumped off the train, saw the flash from the northwest. It came from the farthest tie pile to the north. The direction of the flash was kind of southeast from the north pile of ties. Patton was in a southeasterly direction’ from the tie pile, facing it, — no one between him and it. I started to get back on the train. Heard shots after that, when I was in the car,- — five or six. Only saw the flash of the first shot.”

Another witness who was present says that he heard just’ one shot fired before he got back on the train; that he was excited, and got back on the train as soon as he could; and that he heard several shots fired.

As Patton, and perhaps some of the others, stepped off the train, Patton started back towards the tie piles, and called to the defendants to halt and surrender. Thereupon, immediately, the defendants shot in the direction of Patton, who was then, according to the testimony of some of the witnesses, 15 or 20 feet from the tie pile farthest to the north. Other witnesses put it at a somewhat greater distance. He fell, and was carried to the depot. He died before the depot was reached. A number [768]*768of shots were fired in a short space of time. There is evidence tending to show that the defendants admitted that they fired five shots': one of them three, and the other two. The other parties with Patton fired several shots. Patton himself fired two: one of them towards the tie pile, and the second one in the air. All the witnesses for the State say that no shots were fired by Patton or those with him until after defendants began shooting. The defendants did not testify as witnesses. Testimony was introduced in their behalf, of witnesses who were inside the car, who say that they heard shots on the outside of the car, and that it seemed to them that the first shots were near the train. These witnesses do not all agree as to just where the shots seemed to be. The record shows, we think, that the first shots were fired at about the time or very soon after the train had passed the tie piles, and that the tie piles were but a short distance from the train. It is said by appellant, that there is a conflict in the testimony as to whether the shooting was first commenced by the defendants behind the tie pile or by those who had stepped off the train. No such inference can be drawn from the evidence. It is from this claim that counsel for defendants seek to build up a case of self-defense. They predicate error upon the refusal of the trial court to instruct the jury on that proposition. The contention is that defendants did not know that Patton was an officer, or that he was attempting to make an arrest; that they supposed, and had a right to suppose, that they were being attacked by others; and that they defended themselves from such attack. There is no word of evidence from any witness who claims to know whether Patton and those with him fired the shots, if they did commence firing first, in the air, to frighten defendants into a surrender, or whether such shots, if so fired, were in the direction of the defendants. There is no evidence from the defendants or any other person that Patton or those with him were shooting at the defendants, or that defendants were in danger of bodily harm, or that, as reasonable men, under the circumstances, they anticipated harm. In other words, there is no evidence that these and other necessary elements were present which would justify a claim of self-defense by the defendants. We have examined the evidence [769]*769carefully on this point, because appellant argues this proposition more strongly than some others.

This is a skeleton outline of the case. We have given the tendency of the evidence. Though there may be, at some points, some disagreement as to some of the circumstances, the jury could have found as we have indicated.

Some other circumstances will be referred to briefly, tending to establish the guilt of the defendants, their own consciousness of guilt, their anticipation of arrest, and other matters. Some of these circumstances, particularly as to alleged conversations with defendants in the jail and on the train after-wards, are denied by other witnesses, introduced by the defendants, who were present.

At the time of the transaction, it was getting dark. There were switch lights and other lights in the neighborhood. The marshal and perhaps some others fired towards the tie pile after Patton fell. The defendants were arrested in Missouri, about the 14th of February, 1921, and were brought back to Iowa three or four days later, and were taken to Council Bluffs. Three or four witnesses testify that, on the train at this time, they heard a deputy sheriff ask defendants if they knew they had killed Patton. They made no answer. The deputy said, “Did you know that you hit him?” and one of the defendants said, “We was so close to him I don’t see how we could miss him.” The defendants were sitting together. Defendant Benjamin at that time said he had a big white hat on, the night Patton was killed, and that he hid the hat in the culvert,- that he had another hat in his pocket; that he changed his hat; that the white one was a western cowboy hat, and would attract attention. In this conversation, defendants said that, after the shooting, they went back to the track or road that runs along the track; got into a field; took a southeasterly direction to a barn; crawled through a gate at the fair ground; and took breakfast in Missouri, the morning after the shooting.

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Bluebook (online)
195 Iowa 765, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-hickman-iowa-1923.