112 Me. 544 | Me. | 1915
The defendant was convicted of murder. His motion for a new trial was overruled by the presiding Justice, and the case comes before us on appeal from that decision. R. S., Chap. 135, Sec. 27.
We think the jury might well have found the following facts:— The defendant and the deceased were brothers. On the evening of the homicide, the defendant approached a police officer on the street and said his brother, the deceased, had been chasing bim with bricks, and that he wanted protection; that the officer told him to go to the police station and swear out a warrant, and that thé brother should then be arrested; that the defendant replied, “I don’t care anything about the station or court; I want protection;” that he refused to swear out a warrant; that he was very much excited; that a few moments later he said to the officer “I will get a gun and I will shoot the son of a bitch;” that he then went to his sister’s house, where he was living, changed his clothes, took a revolver from a drawer in his sister’s room, put it in his hip pocket, and went to his brother’s stable, arriving there not more than fifteen or twenty minutes after he left the officer. All of this, except the threat to shoot, is admitted by the defendant. There was also believable evidence that after the homicide he said to the same officer in effect “I told you I would shoot him and I did.”
What actually took place in the stable is in dispute. The dying declaration of the deceased was admitted in evidence. And since its admission was hotly contested, we will add that it was properly admitted. The dying declaration was in these words: — “I was standing in the stall, facing the manger. I was shot from the back. I looked around; I see Mikey (the defendant) and he fired five or six more shots, and he says T- will kill you, you bastard.’ ”
The defendant’s st<siy, so far as it is material to the vital issue, is in these words: — “I went into the barn, and Pat, (the deceased) was standing right up near the door, and I says to him ‘Pat, if you.don’t leave me alone I am going up to swear out a warrant for you and protect myself, and I will carry a gun to protect myself.’ I walked
The defendant introduced a great mass of evidence tending to show that the deceased was a quarrelsome, violent, dangerous man, that he had chased the defendant with bricks that very evening, that on previous occasions he had chased him with bricks, cobble stones and knives, that he had threatened his life, and once had fired a revolver at him.
If the defendant’s story of the homicide is a true one, the previous conduct of the deceased, if the testimony is true, would go far to show that the defendant had reason to believe that he was in imminent danger of great physical harm, or even of loss of life, at the hands of the deceased. And this is one important element of justifiable self defense. If on the other hand, as the State contends, the defendant challenged the fight and provoked the deceased to it, by the handling of the revolver, he cannot claim the benefit of this defense. Wharton on Homicide, Sec. 482; Wharton on Criminal Law, See. 485; Roscoe’s Criminal Evidence, Sec. 768; 21 Cyc., 800.
Accordingly, we conclude that the jury Avere justified in rejecting the claim of self defense set up by the defendant. And the defendant’s story being discredited, as well it might be, the evidence, beginning Avith his threats, followed by his procuring the revolver, his following the deceased to the stable, and his shooting him almost immediately afterwards, is ample to warrant the conclusion that the homicide Avas premeditated and deliberate.
Appeal denied.
Judgment on the verdict.