29 Nev. 203 | Nev. | 1906
The defendants, on the 27th day of December, 1905, killed a human being, designated in the indictment as Fred Foreman, at Montello, in the County of Elko, by cutting and stabbing him with knives. They were thereafter jointly indicted by the grand jury of Elko County for the crime of murder, jointly tried upon such indictment, and both convicted of murder in the first degree. Thereafter, on the 23d day of March, 1906, judgment of death was pronounced upon them. They appeal to this court from the judgment, and from an order, denying their motion for a new trial.
Both upon the trial and upon this appeal, the defendants have been each represented by special counsel, and each relies upon one or more assignments of error based upon exceptions in which the other did not join. For this reason, the ease must be treated as if there were two separate appeals. Most points, however, are common to both, and will require to be noticed but once. The evidence in this case shows that the man killed by the defendants was one of the world’s unfortunates, who was traveling, friendless and alone, across the state. He had but one leg, and walked with a crutch. Upon the night of the murder he was sleeping in an enclosure made of railroad ties, in the center of which was a fire. This inclosure was entered by the defendants, according to their own testimony, some time during the night, probably about midnight. At the trial the defendants made no attempt to disclaim responsibility for the killing, but, upon the contrary, admitted it in their own testimony. The defendant, Ibapah, who is a Goshute Indian, detailed with considerable particularity the manner in which the murder was accomplished. According to his testimony, the defendant, Johnny, and himself had been drinking quite frequently of Jamaica ginger during the day, and had also secured a pint flask of whisky, which they consumed. Some time during the night they observed the light caused by the fire in the tie house. They went to the inelosure and climbed down in it, finding the man, whom they afterwards killed, lying down on some ties. They first sat down upon a tie,
It would seem from the record that there was some manifestation upon the part of each of the defendants to seek to gain some advantage at the expense of the other, although both relied upon drunkenness in mitigation of • the offense. According to their testimony, they had consumed during the day several bottles of Jamaica ginger, which contained,, according to the testimony, about seventy per cent of alcohol; and *a pint flask of whisky. Charles Brown, a witness on behalf of the defendants, testified that he saw them at Montello the afternoon and evening preceding the murder. He saw them first about 2. o’clock, when they seemed to be under the influence of liquor, drunk enough to be boisterous. Pie saw them again between 4 and 5 o’clock, coming in front of a saloon, and they were talking quite loud, and were drunk; He, in company with a man named Bichard Cromley, saw them again that night between 11 and 12 o’clock. They were quite drunk then, trying to help each other along. They were talking very loud and boisterous.
We have carefully reviewed the transcript of the evidence in the record upon the motion, and think the same fully supports the findings and conclusions of the trial court. Mr. Dawley was the clerk of the court, as well as the clerk of the
"Defendants Johnny, an Indian (whose other name, if any, is to the grand jury unknown), and Joe Ibapah, an Indian (whose other name, if any, is to the grand jury Unknown), are accused by the grand jury of the County of Elko,--State of Nevada, by this indictment of the crime of murder, committed as follows, to wit: That the said defendants-Johnny, an Indian, and Joe Ibapah, an Indian, on or about the 27th day of December, A. D. 1905, in the County of Elko, State of Nevada, and before the finding of this indictment, without authority of law, feloniously, wilfully, unlawfully and of their malice aforethought, killed a certain human being, herein designated as Fred Foreman, whose true name is to the grand jury unknown, by striking, cutting, and stabbing the said Fred Foreman with knives; whereof, and by means of the striking, cutting, and stabbing aforesaid, the said Fred Foreman then and there died.”-
Counsel for appellants claim that the indictment is defect
Sections 360 to 362, inclusive, of our criminal practice act (Comp. Laws, 4325-4327) provide as follows:
"4325. See. 360. When two or more defendants are jointly indicted for any offense, they shall be jointly tried, unless for good cause shown by the prosecution or defense, the court shall otherwise direct.
"4326. Sec. 361. When two or more persons are included in the same indictment, the court may at any time before the defendant has gone into his defense, on the application of the district attorney, direct any defendant to be discharged from the indictment, that he may be a witness for the people.
"4327. Sec. 362. When two or more persons are included in the same indictment and the court is of opinion that in regard to a particular defendant there is not sufficient evidence to put him on his defense, it shall order him to be*217 discharged from the indictment, before the evidence shall be deemed closed, that he may be a witness for his codefendant.”
A defendant, jointly indicted with another, who intends to demand a separate trial, must make his motion before the formation of the jury is commenced. (State v. MoLane, 15 Nev. 359.). To have permitted the defendant Johnny to have his ease submitted and determined upon the conclusion of the state’s case, would, in effect, have given him a separate trial, which would not only have been in plain violation of the statute, but might have been fatal error so far as Ibapah’s case was concerned. Counsel for defendant Johnny, in his brief, says: "It is the privilege of a defendant jointly tried with another, when there is little or no evidence against him and he is willing to be tried on the evidence of the prosecution, to demand that the jury pass upon his case before the other defendant opens his defense; and the jury should be charged by the court, and consider their verdict as if the case had no connection with any other.” To support this contention counsel cites Vybee v. State, 36 Tex. 366. We think counsel’s position is not only not supported by the authority cited, but that it is clearly not the law. We quote from the authority cited the following: "After the defendants had withdrawn their motion for a severance, and elected to be jointly tried, they could at any time after the state had closed its evidence, if.there was little or no evidence against one or the other of them, have demanded that the jury should decide upon the case of such one of them; and in all such cases the jury should be charged, by the court, and they should consider of their verdict, in the same manner as if the case had no connection whatever with any other, and their verdict should be guilty or not guilty, as the case may be.” It is clearly shown by the decision that both of the defendants must join in the request for such a submission, and that the purpose of it is so that the other defendant "shall not be deprived of the evidence of eodefendants who are not inculpated by the state’s evidence.” In this state we have a simpler way of accomplishing the same result. See Comp. Laws, 4327, stipra.' In any event, . both under the Texas procedure and that of this state, there
" (26) It is a well-settled rule of law that drunkenness is no excuse for the commission of a crime. Temporary insanity, produced by intoxication does not destroy responsibility, when*221 the party, when sane and responsible made himself voluntarily intoxicated; and drunkenness forms no defense whatever to the fact of guilt, for, when a crime is committed by a party while in a fit of intoxication, the law «will not allow him to avail himself of his own gross vice and misconduct to shelter himself from the legal consequences of such crime. Evidence of drunkenness can only be considered by the jury for the purpose of determining the degree of the crime, and, for this purpose, it must be received with great caution.
" (27); In this case if you find that the defendants unlawfully and with malice aforethought, as already defined to you, killed the person designated as Fred Foreman, it is murder, and if such killing was wilful, deliberate, and premeditated, or was done in the perpetration or attempts to perpetrate robbery, it is murder of the first degree, otherwise it is murder of the second degree, and in determining the degree, any evidence tending to show the mental status of the defendants is proper for the, consideration of the jury. The fact, if it be a fact, that the defendants were drunk, does not render the act less criminal, and in that sense it is not available as an excuse, but there is nothing in this to exclude it as evidence upon the question as to whether the act was deliberate and premeditated or was committed in the carrying out of an intent to rob. Presumptively, every killing is murder, but so far as the degree is concerned, no presumption arises from the mere fact of killing, considered separately and apart from the circumstances under which the killing occurred. The question is one of fact to be determined by the jury from the evidence in the ease, and it is not a mere legal conclusion, and drunkenness, as evidence of want.of premeditation or of an intent to rob, is not within the rule which excludes it as an excuse. Drunkenness neither excuses the offense nor avoids the punishment which the law inflicts, when the character of the offense is ascertained and determined, but evidence of drunkenness is admissible solely with reference to the question of premeditation, or where there is evidence tending to show that a murder has been committed in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate a robbery, as to the question of the existence of the felonious intent to steal*222 which is an essential element of robbery. In cases of premeditated murder, the fact of drunkenness is immaterial. A man who is drunk may act with premeditation as well as a sober one, and is equally responsible for the consequences of his act. In murder of the first degree, it is necessary to prove the killing was premeditated or was committed in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate robbery or one of the other felonies already enumerated, which involves, of course, an inquiry into the state of mind under which the party committed it,» and, in prosecution of such an inquiry, his condition as drunk or sober is proper to be considered. The weight to be given it is a matter for the jury to determine, and it should be received with great caution and carefully examined in connection with all the circumstances and evidence in the case. You should discriminate between the conditions of mind merely excited by intoxicating drink and yet capable of forming a specific and deliberate intent to take life, and such a prostration of the faculties as renders a man incapable of forming the intent, or of deliberation or premeditation. If an intoxicated person has the capacity to form the intent to take life, and conceives and executes such intent, it is no ground for reducing the degree of his crime that he was induced to conceive it, or to conceive it more suddenly by reason of his intoxication.”
Defendants' requested instruction No. 5: "You are instructed that in order to find the defendants or either of them guilty of murder in the first degree you must find from the evidence beyond all reasonable doubt that the murder was perpetrated by means of poison, or lying in wait, or torture, or by any other, wilful, deliberate, and premeditated killing, or in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate robbery. This ingredient of deliberate premeditated killing must be clearly shown and proven beyond all reasonable doubt. It is not sufficient that you think that the killing was deliberate and premeditated; the evidence must convince you of that fact to an abiding certainty and beyond all reasonable doubt. The evidence of deliberation and premeditation must be such as to convince you that the deliberate premeditated design and purpose to murder was know
Counsel for defendants attack the court’s instruction No. 27 as being an erroneous statement of the law, ambiguous and misleading, consequently highly prejudicial to the defendants. The instruction complained of was doubtless copied in the main from an instruction that has a' number of times met with the approval of the Supreme Court of California. (People v. Williams, 43 Cal. 345; People v. Belencia, 21 Cal. 545; People v. Lewis, 36 Cal. 531; People v. Ferris, 55 Cal. 592; People v. Jones, 63 Cal. 168; People v. Vincent, 95 Cal. 425, 30 Pac. 581.) The instructions upon the law of drunkenness, as applicable to this case, should be considered together. The jury, we think, were fairly and correctly instructed upon this point of the law. (People v. Leonardi, 143 N. Y. 364, 38 N. E. 372; State v. Hawkins, 23 Wash. 289, 63 Pac. 258; Wilson v. State, 60 N. J. Law, 171, 37 Atl. 954, 38 Atl. 428; Hopt v. People, 104 U. S. 632, 26 L. Ed. 873; Booher v. State, 156 Ind. 447, 60 N. E. 156, 54 L. R. A. 391; State v. Thompson, 12 Nev. 151.) See, also, 21 Cyc. 670; McClain on Cr. Law, 162.
There are some other alleged errors in the record, but we
• The judgment and order denying the motion for a new trial are affirmed, and the district court is directed to fix a time and make all necessary and proper orders for having its sentence carried into effect by the. warden of the state prison.