135 Iowa 53 | Iowa | 1906
The defendant was convicted upon an indictment charging him with the murder of Le Roy Addison, who died of a pistol shot wound on or about September 15, 1905. It is not seriously contended, nor could it well be argued, that the verdict of guilty is without sufficient support in the evidence. We shall not attempt to rehearse the testimony in great detail. In a general way it may be said to have been shown with more or less certainty that appellant and the deceased were old acquaintances, and, prior to their meeting at the time of the alleged murder, had been on friendly terms. Both were addicted to the excessive use of intoxicants. On the morning of the day before the death of Addison they chanced to meet at the town of Oakland, Iowa, and together took the train to Avoca; the deceased claiming to be on his way to Shelby, and the appellant on his way to Atlantic. At Avoca they seem to have abandoned the idea of going farther at that time, and began making the rounds of the drinking saloons at that place — both becoming intoxieáted. That night they slept in a box car standing at the railway station, and, on the next morning, resumed their carousal. At about two o’clock in the afternoon both were drunk. In a saloon, in the presence of several persons, deceased proposed to a witness that they play a game of craps, but, the witness declining the invitation, appellant said he would go and “ shoot a few craps ” with him. They went out and made their way to a coal shed at the side of the railway track. The shed was open at the end, and they were seen to sit down by the posts which sup
Now, the fact as to the distance at which a gun or revolver shot will ordinarily leave these indications upon cloth, and the extent, if any, of these indications when the weapon is fired from a given or assumed distance, is not a matter of such common observation that competent evidence upon the subject may not be admitted, and testimony of experiments of the character of the one here objected to has often been held admissible. Boyd v. State, 14 Lea (Tenn.), 161; People v. Levine, 85 Cal. 39 (22 Pac. 969, 24 Pac. 631); Sullivan v. Com., 93 Pa. 297; State v. Asbell, 57 Kan. 398 (46 Pac. 770). Bearing, also, upon the proposition: Smith v. State, 2 Ohio St. 512. Upon the rule as to evidence of experiments in general, see Tackman v. Brotherhood, 132 Iowa, 64; Burg v. Railroad Co., 90 Iowa, 106; Brook v. Railroad Co., 81 Iowa, 504; Railroad Co. v. Burns, 32 Ill. App. 196; Clark v. State, 38 Tex. Cr. R. 30 (40 S. W. 992); State v. Jones, 41 Kan. 312 (21 Pac. 265); Nosler v. Railroad Co., 73 Iowa, 268; Moore v. State, 96 Tenn. 209 (33 S. W. 1046); State v. Nordstrum, 7 Wash. 506 (35
the State in rebuttal to put in evidence any fact tending to disprove the theory of suicide committed in the manner described by him. This rule is none the less applicable because the evidence offered may also tend to make out the State’s main case. State v. Zimmerman, 3 Kan. App. 172 (42 Pac. 828); State v. Yetzer, 66 Iowa, 423; McQuinn v. Commonwealth, 17 Ky. Laws, 500 (31 S. W. 872).