State v. Vaughan

102 S.W. 644, 203 Mo. 663, 1907 Mo. LEXIS 42
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMay 14, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 102 S.W. 644 (State v. Vaughan) 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. Vaughan, 102 S.W. 644, 203 Mo. 663, 1907 Mo. LEXIS 42 (Mo. 1907).

Opinion

GANTT, J.

This is the second appeal in this cause. The first is found reported in 200 Mo. l.

The defendants were indicted at the November term, 1905, for the murder of John A. Clay on the 24th of November, 1905. When the cause was here at the October term, 1906, of this court, it was reversed for the sole reason that the circuit court refused to instruct the jury that they were at liberty to find one or more of the defendants guilty and the others not guilty as [666]*666they might deem right and proper under the instructions of the court and the evidence in the ease. On the re-trial of the cause on January 12, 1907, the circuit court gave said instruction in addition to those which it gave on the former appeal, and the jury under the evidence and the instructions of the court found each of the defendants guilty of murder in the first degree as charged in the indictment. And after motions for new trial and in arrest were heard and overruled, sentenced each' of the defendants separately to he hung on the first day of March, 1907. From that sentence the defendants have in due and proper form appealed to this court.

As on the former trial, the testimony on behalf of the State tended to prove that all three of the defendants and one Hiram Blake were on the 24th of November, 1905, lawfully imprisoned in the State penitentiary situated in the eastern portion of Jefferson City, Missouri. That around the penitentiary buildings and grounds, there is a high stone wall, and the entrances into the penitentiary are through the western walls. A short distance north of the north wall are situated the tracks of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and a few feet north of the tracks is the Missouri river. In the testimony of the witnesses two entrances are referred to, one being through the office in the administration building of the penitentiary, entering the grounds through an ordinary door opening into an iron cage, the other one, the wagon entrance; this last-named entrance was used by all vehicles that had occasion to go in and out of the prison walls, and consisted of two sets of double doors situated some distance from each other. On the 24th of November, 1905, Matt. ~W. Hall was warden, R. E. See was deputy warden and John A. Clay, Ephraim Allison, J. K. Young and John Bruner were guards at the prison. It was the duty of Mr. Clay, to stand in the wagon entrance between the two double [667]*667doors, inspect the contents of the various loads that passed through said entrance, and attend to the locking and unlocking of the doors. Mr. See’s duties as deputy warden required that he spend most of his time in his office, which was some seventy-five feet north of the iron cage entrance, and this entrance was some fifteen or twenty feet north of the wagon entrance. Mr. See’s office was on the ground floor and opened out into the yard of the prison, and this yard opened into the stockade in which were located the prison shops where the three defendants and one Blake were working. Warden Hall and several of the prison officials were absent from the city on official business, having left Jefferson City on the forenoon of that day. About three o’clock on the afternoon of said day two gentlemen from Osage county were admitted as visitors to the prison and were sitting in the deputy warden’s office talking to a prisoner,, when the three defendants and Blake appeared at the door of the said office with pistols in their hands and commanded deputy warden See to hold up his hands, threatening to kill him if he refused. Mr. See endeavored to draw his pistol and one of the four convicts fired his pistol, striking See in the wrist and also wounding defendant Yaughan in the hand. Yaughan was in the act of grabbing Mr. See’s hand when Blake shot at Mr. See. See was then disarmed by them, dragged out of his office and ordered to march between Bláke and the defendant Yaughan to the wagon entrance; and the two visitors were also ordered to march, one by the side of the defendant Ryan and the other by the side of the defendant Raymond. The wagon entrance was reached just as the inner doors were being opened to admit a two-horse wagon into the prison yard, and the four convicts rushed through said doors, taking with them Mr. See and one of the visitors, the other visitor managed to get loose and escaped. The four convicts ordered Mr. Clay, who was on duty [668]*668at that point, to hold np his hands, which he did; they then ordered him to hold his hands np higher. Someone in the wagon entrance then fired at Olay, striking him in the neck and killing him instantly. As the space in this wagon entrance was tolerably dark, neither Mr. See nor "Weggeman, one of the visitors, could state who it was who fired the shot, bnt the driver of the team, Charles Woodland, testified'positively that the defendant Yanghan was the first man to push into said wagon entrance and that Yanghan fired the shot. Other shots were fired by the defendants and Blake in said entrance, some of which were so close as to burn Mr. See’s face with powder. These defendants then ordered See to unlock the outside doors, but he told them that he could not and did not know how, and finally suggested to them that he could show them a better way through the office. The defendants and Blake then went with Mr. See to a door that opens into this wagon entrance from the guard room, where Mr. Allison appeared at the door and ordered the men to throw up their hands, whereupon one of the four shot and killed Mr. Allison. One of the four then shouted, “Kill them all, let’s shoot our way out.” About that time one of them shot Mr. See in the shoulder and in the side, and he fell to the ground. One of them then said, “Captain See is dead, now get to work, we are losing time.” Mr. Young was. up stairs in the armory and hurriedly came down to discover the cause of the disturbance. He saw the body of Mr. Allison on the floor, and walked toward the door opening into the wagon entrance, when some one in this entrance shot him. Hearing the firing, Mr. Bruner, another guard, ran from the dining-room building to the inner doors of the entrance and looked in through a small hole in the door; some one in the wagon entrance commanded him to go away, and shot at him. Thereupon, these four convicts, having made one ineffectual effort to .blow open the outer door with nitro[669]*669glycerin, again applied it to the outer doors of the wagon entrance, and this time succeeded, and by its explosion a large strip was blown off of one of the said doors, maldng a hole sufficient in size for them to jump through and make their escape, which they did. After getting out of the prison, the three defendants and Blake ran together towards the Missouri Pacific railway tracks and west along said tracks toward the station. They stopped a moment to re-load their pistols and ran around on the north side of some freight cars. Captain See and the guard, Bruner, followed them towards the depot. Bruner soon came within range of them and exchanged several shots with them. He succeeded in wounding Blake in the leg. Blake was then captured and taken back to prison, where he soon died from thé effects of his wound. In the meantime, the police of Jefferson City had been notified of the escape and joined in the pursuit of the three defendants herein, and after a running fire they were all three captured and returned to the prison. At the time of the capture each defendant had a 44-calihre pistol in his hand, and from forty to one hundred cartridges in his pocket; and the defendant Vaughan had a stick of dynamite, a bottle of nitroglycerin, and some fuse and caps. The State’s evidence showed that Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
102 S.W. 644, 203 Mo. 663, 1907 Mo. LEXIS 42, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-vaughan-mo-1907.