94 Ky. 322 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1893
delivered the opinion of the court.
At the March term of the Pike Circuit Court for the year 1893, Henry Hall, the appellant, was indicted for the murder of his brother, Randolph Hall, and
We have- seldom read a record oí conviction where there were less palliating circumstances in behalf of the accused than this case presents. He filed an affidavit for a continuance on the ground that his brother had threatened to take his life, and had,- on more than one occasion, assaulted him — facts- that could be established by the absent witnesses who had been summoned. The court refused the continuance and allowed the statements contained in the affidavit as to what these absent witnesses would state, to go to the jury as evidence. On the trial he established, by a number of witnesses who were before the jury, that these threats had been made, as well as the assault upon him, by his deceased brother, with a knife, some time prior to the killing. There can be no doubt that both the brothers, when under, the influence of liquor, were violent and bad -men, and that when their passions were inflamed by liquor,- they respected the rights or feelings of no one, not even their parents, and this murder was the result of a drunken debauch when in a game of cards the one brother had won the money of the other.
There was no one present when the murder took place but the little daughter of the deceased, of the age of twelve years, and a brother of the two men, who were ready to kill each other at any time when drunk, and that brother was so stupefied -with whisky as not to be able to give- any account of the shooting, except that the shooting aroused him from his stupor, and he saw one brother standing with his
The brother, who seems to have been in a stupid condition when the shots were fired, says that they did play in the house, and he went off to sleep. The accused also states that the little girl was not present
After the jury had returned its verdict in this case, and when the accused was asked if he had any reason to assign why judgment should not be pronounced against him, he responded by saying: That the judge
This court in the case of the World’s Pair appropriation (Norman, Auditor, v. Ky. Board of Managers, &c., 93 Ky., 537) discussed this question, but in our opinion the case before us is not to be governed by the doctrine of the majority opinion in that casé. The Constitution requires that the election of all State officers shall be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, and this court judicially knows that circuit judges were elected in this State as provided by the Constitution on Tuesday after the first Monday in November, 1892, and that John S. Patton was elected in the district in which he presides, embracing the county of Pike. This was a general State election, and directed to be held by the Constitution, and no emergency clause was necessary, as the provision of the organic law is imperative, and no legislative act could alter its provisions or fix the time for the election on any other day or year, and the omission of the Legislature to
Judgment affirmed.