83 Va. 689 | Va. | 1887
delivered the opinion of the court.
The single question in the case arises upon the prisoner’s exception to the action of the county court in overruling his motion for a new trial. The motion was based upon
In such a case, the rule—too familiar to require the citation of authority—is that the judgment of the lower court must be affirmed, unless, after rejecting all the parol evidence for the exceptor, and giving full force and credit to the evidence for the other side, the judgment still appears to be wrong.
Another rule—equally well established, and to which it may be well to advert—is that a motion to set aside a verdict fairly rendered, on the ground that the same is contrary to the evidence, or is not supported by the evidence, must be overruled, unless the verdict be plainly wrong. It is not sufficient that the court, if upon the jury, would have rendered a different verdict; but the verdict must stand unless, we repeat, it be plainly wrong. If the rule were otherwise, it would lead to constant invasion of the province of the jury to pass upon the facts of the case, and whose conclusions upon questions of fact are entitled to-great weight, and ought not to be lightly disturbed. And the rule applies with increased force in the appellate court, where the witnesses are not seen and heard, as they were by the jury and the trial court. It is, therefore, an essential rule in the administration of justice, and ought to be maintained. Grayson’s case, 6 Gratt. 7l2; Dean’s case, 32 Id. 912; Cluverius’ case, 81 Va. 787.
With these remarks—perhaps too trite to be necessary on this occasion—we proceed to dispose of the case as it appears to us from the evidence for the Commonwealth.
The evidence is circumstantial, and, therefore, to be acted on with the utmost caution. Johnson’s case, 29 Gratt. 796; Anderson’s case, 83 Va. 326. This is so in all cases of cir
It appears that on the day mentioned in the indictment, in the evening, about dark, the dead body of the deceased was found in the woods—“a thick, brushy woods,” in the language of the witnesses—about three hundred yards from Lewis Clarke’s blacksmith shop, in Eockingham county. According to the medical evidence in the case, death had probably occurred several hours before the body was found. There was a bruise on the back of the head, apparently made with some blunt instrument, and the right side of the head was partially blown away—done, we think the evidence shows, by the discharge of a loaded gun, in the hands of an assassin, from behind, at short range. The wounds were such as to cause death. There is no question as to the corpus delicti. The deceased had left his home, in the neighborhood of Clarke’s shop, about daylight on the morning of the same day, and went to Hugh Leach’s to collect the balance of a debt due him by Leach on the sale of a horse. He arrived at Leach’s about sunrise, and obtained an order for the payment of a small sum of money on Clarke, the blacksmith. He declined an invitation from Leach to breakfast, on the ground that he had an engagement to meet Ms brother (the prisoner)—he
The prisoner left home about eight o’clock the same morning, riding his brother’s horse to be shod. He took with him a gun and ammunition, and was followed by a dog, which plays a not unimportant part in the tragedy that ensued. He went directly to Clarke’s shop. Upon his arrival there, finding Clarke temporarily absent, he asked the witness, Taliaferro, to tell him when he returned to shoe the horse. He hitched the horse and left the shop on foot. He had a mattock, which he left to be sharpened ; but he did not leave the gun; that he took with him, going in the direction of the woods above mentioned. When he was leaving home, he called the dog to follow him, saying he wanted it to tree a squirrel. But when he went to the woods he left the dog at the shop. This was between eight and nine o’clock in the morning.
About eleven o’clock, the deceased came to the shop from the direction of the woods, and inquired of Clarke (who in the meantime had returned) if his horse was shod. The latter replied that it had been shod before, but not behind; whereupon he directed him to put on old shoes behind, at the same time inviting him to take a - drink of brandy out of a black bottle he had, which he did. The deceased then remarked that he had more “ down in the bushes,” and that when he returned to the shop he would give him (Clarke) “a good dram.” He then started for the woods, followed by the dog that had followed the prisoner to the shop. He went in the direction whence he had come, saying he would return in about fifteen minutes. He never returned alive.
The same witness also testifies that he told the prisoner the deceased had gone in the direction of the woods, whereupon he said he would go and find him. He started for the woods, but had not gone far when he stopped short, cut a switch and returned to the shop, saying he couldn’t see him. He then got on the horse and went home, leaving the gun at the shop, notwithstanding he had been told that Clarke did “not work on guns.” Several of his neighbors who knew him testify that they never saw the prisoner with a gun before.
The dog remained about the shop a short while after the prisoner’s departure, and then disappeared. It seems it returned to the woods to guard the body of the deceased, and it was by its running out at a passer-by that the body was discovered.
Late that night, when the body was taken to the house, and the neighbors who took it knocked at the door, a noise was heard as of a man jumping out of bed to the floor, and then footsteps were heard crossing the room to the door. In the room was a bed, in which was the widow of the deceased, and in another part of the room, near the door, there was a small, narrow lounge, upon which a little child was sleeping. The prisoner came to the door and opened it. He came from the direction of the ted, and after the door was opened he seemed nervous, and acted strangely. Neither he nor the widow had much to say, or showed signs of grief. The prisoner was unmarried. She asked him why he had not told her “ Pres.” was dead when he first came home, saying, “You told me he was over in the brush by Clarke’s shop, drunk.” To this he made no answer, but went over to the bed where she was and whispered to her. She was asked by one of the witnesses present at what time that day the prisoner had seen the deceased, to which she answered atowb twelve o’ clock. The
The next day an inquest was held and the prisoner was requested to appear. He did so, and made a statement attempting to account for himself the day previous. He said that after he left the blacksmith shop in the morning he “went straight to Elkton” to get his mail; but Elkton is not in the direction of the woods towards which, after leaving the shop, he was seen to go. He said he saw Mr. Joe Kite, the postmaster at Elkton, whom he knew and whom he asked for his mail; but Kite was not at Elkton or in Eockingham county that day. He said he bought two pounds of coffee of William Austin, a clerk in An-trim’s store at Elkton, at the same time; but Austin had left Antrim’s service two months before and was not atElkton. He also said he saw Ed. Miller at Elkton; but Miller was absent from Elkton and did not return until two o’clock in the afternoon.
The witness Eiddle, who attended to the post-office in the absence of the postmaster on the day of the homicide, swears positively and unequivocally that he (the prisoner) was not at the post-office. And not one of the numerous witnesses who were examined in the case testifies to having seen him at Elkton that day. He also made contradictory statements as to where he got the brandy he had; and, in short, his statement before the coroner’s jury is disproved by the evidence for the Commonwealth in almost every essential particular.
After his arrest he said the gun wouldn’t shoot, but the evidence shows that it would. And he said if he had known he was suspected he would have left and “ they
Such substantially are the principal facts of the case. And they fairly show, we think, time, place, means and opportunity as concurrent circumstances pointing to the-prisoner’s guilt. Besides these, is the conduct of the prisoner after the crime was committed, which, taken in connection with the whole case, produces a moral conviction of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. When told by Clarke that the deceased had gone in the direction of the woods, he pretended to start in search of him, but had not gone far when he turned back and rode home. That night, when told his brother was dead, his instant inquiry was “ who hilled him ? ” He refused to go for the body, and when McDaniel (to whom he made a false statement) declined to go, he concerned himself no further about it. Added to this apparent indifference is his strange and suspicious conduct later that night when the body was brought home. And his statements afterwards, nearly all of which were false, create the strongest presumptions against him. Such conduct is consistent only with the hypothesis of guilt.
This sufficiently disposes of the contention that there is no proof of motive in the present case. The jury obviously thought there was, and we concur in their conclusion. They were warranted in inferring it from the prisoner’s conduct, independently of the evidence tending to show improper relations between him and his brother’s wife.
That murder is sometimes committed without apparent motive is indisputable. The books contain numerous such cases. Crime, it is said, is rarely logical; and murders are often, if not generally, committed from motives comparatively trivial. At all events, a jury ought not to hesitate to convict, where the evidence of guilt is in other respects satisfactory, simply because the motive from which the criminal act proceeded may seem inadequate. Were a different rule to prevail, many heinous crimes would go unpunished. 1 Whart. Crim. Law (8th ed.), § 121.
In the present case, however, it is not difficult to infer from the record what the motive was upon which the prisoner acted. It was a motive not uncommon in criminal annals, and, as experience shows, a powerful one in the commission of crime—namely, a desire to render it'easier and safer to gratify lustful passion.
Judgment affirmed.