Terrill v. State

42 N.W. 243, 74 Wis. 278, 1889 Wisc. LEXIS 79
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedApril 25, 1889
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 42 N.W. 243 (Terrill v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Terrill v. State, 42 N.W. 243, 74 Wis. 278, 1889 Wisc. LEXIS 79 (Wis. 1889).

Opinion

Cassoday, J.

The facts and circumstances attending the homicide, as stated by the respective counsel, seem to be substantially as follows: Terrill was born and raised in Mineral Point. At the time of the homicide he was the proprietor and keeper of a hotel at that place, with a barroom in the basement. When he was a young man he was in the habit of drinking intoxicating liquors. Then he quit, and for seventeen years refrained entirely from drinking any such liquors. About 18S5 he commenced drinking again, and continued for a few days. After that he drank occasionally, but at long intervals. A few days previous to the killing he had sat up for several nights with a sick son. On the afternoon of Saturday, May 12, 1888, he drank a patent medicine which was intoxicating. In the evening he drank heavily of intoxicating liquor at a saloon. About 11 o’clock in the evening of that day he returned to his own hotel, accompanied by some other persons. Soon [282]*282after, in his bar-room, he invited the deceased and two or three others present to drink, and they all, in a friendly way, including Terrill, drank two or three times together. During the time the deceased took from his pocket a revolver, and said, in effect, that if any one attempted to touch Terrill, he (the deceased) would put a hole through him with his revolver. Terrill then told the deceased to put up the-revolver; that there was no need of trouble; and the deceased did so. Terrill, apparently pleased with the deceased, offered him some money, which he at first hesitated to take, but finally consented to take one dollar. As Terrill was in the act of handing the deceased the dollar, he drew it back, sajfing— “Pshaw! a dollar aint anything; ” and then handed him a five-dollar bill. Terrill then treated them all, and the deceased insisted upon paying for the drinks, and handed the five-dollar bill to Terrill for that purpose. Terrill took the money, and then went up the steps on the west side of the bar-room into tbe dining-room, apparently for the purpose of getting the bill changed, but soon returned by the same steps to the bar-room below with a .44-caliber British bull-dog self-cocking revolver in his hand, and, holding the revolver up, he walked towards the bar, near the east end of which the decased stood —on the south side of the room. The deceased exclaimed: “ Don’t shoot, Mark! Put that up.” After a step or two forward, Terrill, without saying a word, walked or retreated back towards the north side of the room, and near the large stove standing near the center of the room, and on the north side of it, and probably a few steps west of it. Prom that place, or in that vicinity, Terrill fired at least three times, possibly four, as it was found that four of the chambers of the revolver were empty, although the witnesses seem to agree that there were only three shots. After the first shot the deceased appears to have moved from the east corner of the bar, on the south side of the room, towards the north [283]*283side of the room, and when the second and third shots were fired he was directly east of Terrill, and about five or six feet from him, and a little north and east of the stove • — -in the act of moving or dodging. The testimony does not indicate very clearly the positions of the several persons in the room during the time. All seem to agree that the last shot fired was the one that killed Wesley, the bail penetrating his head at the inner angle of the right eye, a little below where the eye-brow joins the nose, and passing in nearly á straight line to the body of the sphenoid bone, a portion of which was destroyed. It did not touch the brain, and he died from hemorrhage caused by the rupture of arteries. It was the opinion of the four medical experts that it was a glance shot, as a direct shot would either have passed clear through the head, or nearly so. Terrill did not speak a word after coming down -stairs with the revolver until after the shooting, and then went up to the deceased and said: “By God,” or “My God! I have shot him.” Terrill and Wesley had always been good friends, and there was not an angry word spoken by either of them, nor by any one there that night. One shot lodged in the bird-cage' at the extreme south end of the room, and above the bar; one grazed the ceiling a few feet southeast of the stove; another grazed the girder extending from a post standing near the southeast corner of the stove, towards the bar; and one passed through the upper part of the window on the east side of the room. Some of the shots grazed the stove. The direction of the first shot is somewhat uncertain, but it seems to be conceded that it was not in the direction of the deceased. It is undisputed that at the time of firing the second and third shots Terrill stood on the north side of the stove, and a little to the west of it, and facing the stove, or, as the witnesses said, “quartering to it, and fired in the direction of the stove.

Upon the trial the court submitted to the jury the ques[284]*284tion whether Terrill was guilty of murder in the first, second, or third degree, or manslaughter in the fourth degree. There may have been sufficient evidence to have supported a verdict of murder in the first or second degree, or of manslaughter in the fourth degree, and perhaps some other degree of homicide. In respect to murder in the third degree the court charged the jury as follows: “If the defendant did not kill Wesley from premeditated design or any other design to effect his death, nor by an act imminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, but you are convinced from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that at the time the defendant shot Wesley he intended to do the l?„tter great bodily harm, and that it was pursuant to such intent that the defendant fired the fatal shot, you should find the defendant guilty of murder in the third degree, which is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not more than fourteen years, nor less than seven years.” The jury returned a verdict to the effect that Terrill was guilty of murder in the third degree. Such an offense is described by the statute in these words: “The killing of a humhn being without any design to effect death, by a person engaged in the commission of any felony, shall be murder in the third degree.” Sec. 4345, R. S. The term “ felony,” here used, means an offense punishable “ by imprisonment in the state prison.” Sec. 4637, R. S.; State v. Hammond, 35 Wis. 318. The felony here mentioned is manifestly a different offense from the killing of which the accused is convicted. To sustain the conviction, therefore, there must be evidence in the record that at the time of the killing Terrill was actually engaged in the commission ” of some other offense punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, and also that while so engaged he fired the shot which resulted in the death of Wesley, but that such shooting -was without any design to effect the death of any [285]*285human, being. In other words, the evidence must justify what the jury have, under the portion of the charge quoted, in effect found, to wit, that Terrill purposely shot at Wesley -with the intent to do him great bodily harm, but without any design to effect his death. Sec. 4311, E. S. As indicated, the evidence seems to be conclusive that the fatal shot was aimed at the stove and not directly at Wesley; but assuming that Terrill

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
42 N.W. 243, 74 Wis. 278, 1889 Wisc. LEXIS 79, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/terrill-v-state-wis-1889.