35 P. 655 | Or. | 1894
Lead Opinion
Opinion by
The defendant was convicted in the circuit court of Mu-ltnomah County of the crime of murder in the first degree in killing one Gus' Barry on the morning of the fifteenth of January, eighteen hundred and ninety-three, by shooting him with a pistol. The proof shows that previous to the homicide, the deceased, with his wife and Miss Wright, his sister-in-law, lived in a building in the city of Portland fronting upon and abutting Olay Street, containing three rooms, the one in front being occupied by the deceased and wife as a bedroom, immediately in the rear of which was the sitting-room, connecting with this room by double doors. In the rear of the sitting-room was another room, occupied by Miss Wright as a bedroom. The prisoner, who seems to have been a suitor of Miss Wright, was requested by her, two or three days before the homicide, at the suggestion of Mrs. Barry, to come and stay at the house nights, because the deceased
A short time after the cause was submitted, the jury returned into court, and through their foreman asked the following question: “Would the time which elapsed wdnle the defendant was going from the sidewalk into the room where the shooting took place be sufficient to give opportunity for deliberation and premeditation?” to which the court answered, “It would.” This is the principal assignment of error relied upon for the reversal of the judgment. The contention for the defendant is that,while no particular time is necessary for deliberation and premeditation, it was an invasion by the court of the province of the jury to tell them, as a matter of law,
The crime of murder-in the first degree is defined by the statute to be the killing of a human being “ purposely and of deliberate and premeditated malice.” To constitute this crime, it is essential that the deliberate and premeditated design to kill must precede the killing by some appreciable length of time, sufficient for reflection and consideration upon the matter, and the formation of a definite purpose to kill, and it matters not how short the lime is if it is sufficient for that purpose. The rapidity of mental action is such that the formation of a design may not occupy more than a moment of time, and it is sufficient if it is formed and matured while the mifid is in its normal state, and under the control of the slayer, however brief the space of time may be. In this case it • affirmatively appears from all the evidence, both of the state and that of the prisoner himself, that during the time he was going from the sidewalk into the room of the deceased he was in possession of his usual faculties, and his mind was in its normal state, uninfluenced by passion or disturbed by any sudden and uncontrollable emotions, and under such circumstances we think it was not error to declare as a matter, of law that the time occupied in so doing gave him opportunity for deliberation and premeditation, and this is all the court declares in its answer to the question propounded by the jury.
Affirmed.
Rehearing
On Rehearing.
[36 Pac. 673.]
Opinion by
The contention of defendant’s counsel, and the principle embodied in the instructions refused, as well as those given, to which the exception is directed, as we understand it, is that the real or apparent danger, sufficient to justify the taking of human life, is to be determined from the defendant’s standpoint alone, and that if he honestly believed his life in danger, or that he was in .danger of great bodily harm, and, acting under such belief, took the life of his supposed assailant, it would be excusable homicide. This theory bases the right of .self-defense upon the belief of the person defending, and not upon the ground of such belief or the reasonable appearance of danger. We do not so understand the law. A recent writer on this subject has thus concisely stated the rule as supported by the great weight of authority: “In order to justify a homicide on the ground that it was committed in self-defense, it must appear that the defendant, at the time he caused the death of the deceased, was acting under a reasonable belief that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm from the deceased, and that it was necessary for him to strike the fatal blow or to perform such other act causing the death of deceased, in order to avoid the death or great bodily harm which was apparently imminent”: Kerr on Homicide, § 166, and authorities there cited. Under this rule and the authorities cited in its support the justification of a homicide on the ground of self-defense is not a question which depends wholly upon the belief which the defendant entertained, but the question is what was his belief, and whether, under all the circumstances, as they appeared to him at the time of the homicide, the jury think there was ground for a reasonable belief in his mind
In State v. Keene, 50 Mo. 360, from which a portion of the instruction objected to was evidently taken, Mr. Justice Wagner says: “When the homicide is committed under such circumstances that it is doubtful whether the
The theory upon which evidence of this nature is
The utmost confusion exists in the adjudged cases in this matter of definition, and instances abound in the books where the same definition has been held error in one jurisdiction and as correct in another, and this is even true in the same state. But the authorities all agree that a doubt, to be reasonable, must be actual and substantial, as contradistinguished from a mere vague and imaginary one, but they differ widely as to what is an accurate expression of the definition of such a doubt. This difference naturally grows out of the inadequacy of language to make plainer, by further definition or refining, a term the meaning of which is within the comprehension of every person capable of understanding common English. It would undoubtedly have been better and safer for the trial court in this case to have omitted from its definition that portion of the instruction to which the objection was directed, but, since it was given, we must decide whether it contained error prejudicial to the defendant’ In Cowan v. State, 22 Neb. 519, 35 N. W. 405, and Carr v. State, 23 Neb. 749, 37 N. W. 630, it was held that an instruction defining a reasonable doubt as “a doubt for having which the jury can give a reason based upon the testimony,” was reversible error, because it was calculated to and did mislead and confuse
In People v. Stoubenvoll, 62 Mich. 329, 28 N. W. 883, it seems to be conceded that the instruction that “what is meant by a reasonable doubt is, as the term implies, a doubt arising out of the facts and circumstances of the case,- in maintaining which you can give a good reason,” was not strictly accurate, but the court said it could have produced no practical consequences in the case, and refused to reverse on that ground. In 14 Central Law Journal, 447, it is said that a reasonable doubt “must be such that a jury can give a reason for,” and Judge Speer, in instructing the jury in the case of U. S. v. Jackson, 29 Fed. R. 503, and in U. S. v. Jones, 31 Fed. R. 718, says that “it is a doubt for which a good reason can
Affirmed.