7 Kan. 143 | Kan. | 1871
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The appellant was tried for murder at the December Term of the Criminal Court of Leavenworth county, and sentence of death was pronounced upon him by the court. In bringing the record to this court, his counsel urges many errors, which will be considered in their order, so far as they are deemed important.
Doct. Thomas was introduced by the defense as an expert. On his cross-examination, the counsel for the State put a hypothetical question, intended to cover all the circumstances detailed by the witnesses on the trial) and asking from these facts whether the witness would consider a person so acting a person of unsound mind. It is claimed that the hypothesis falls far short of including all the facts in testimony in the case; but in what particular has not been pointed out by the counsel for the appellant. Nor have we been able to perceive. Nor is it now material to determine whether such is the fact,
“That before the jury could convict they must find that said Reddick was at the time a person of sound memory and discretion. The law presumes every man to be sane, and that he is responsible for what he does. If however in'any case, testimony be introduced tending to show insanity, then the sanity of the accused must be shown by the State, as any other fact in the case, to the satisfaction of the jury. Each and every allegation going to make up the offenses I have described to you must be proved to your satisfaction beyond a reasonable doubt; and the burden of proof is upon the State; and if you have a reasonable doubt of any such material fact in either of the offenses named you are bound to acquit the defendant of such offense.”
“If the jury find that he committed the homicide, the prisoner is not guilty unless he was of sound mind at the time of the offense charged; and the jury to convict the prisoner of the offense charged must find, beyond a reasonable doubt, the existence of every element necessary to constitute murder in the first degree.”
This last paragraph was given at the instance of defendant’s counsel; and while it was not necessary that every element necessary to constitute murder in the first degree should be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to convict, because the defendant might have been convicted of murder in the second degree, or manslaughter, without proof of facts necessary to convict of murder in the first degree, still the error is not one of which defendant can
The charge and instructions of the court as set out above are as favorable to the defendant, on the point of insanity, and the measure and burden of proof therein, as can be claimed under the new rule recently adopted in the courts of some of the States. The substance of the charge is, that sanity, if attacked by testimony, is to be proved by the State as any other fact, to the satisface tion of the j ury, and each and every fact must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. This is laying down the rule as broadly as it has been announced anywhere, and as plainly. It is a great innovation on the decisions on this questions almost uniformly made till within a recent period. The rule having thus been laid down most favorable to the defendant, he cannot complain; and the State is claiming no error; so that the really embarrassing question argued with so much skill by the counsel for the appellant is not before this court, and no opinion is expressed thereon. . We prefer in deciding a matter of so much importance, to do it in a case where the question is made in the record, and its decision a necessity.
On the point as to what if any unsoundness of mind will excuse the commission of an alleged crime, we do not propose to comment at any length. The charge of' the court on this point seems to have been carefully drawn, and fairly guarded alike the rights of the prisoner and the interests of society, so far as the same can be done in the present state of knowledge. “ The results of “scientific investigations on this intricate subject are so “ imperfect as to render it very difficult to establish any “ general rule by which judicial proceedings of a criminal “ nature should be governed, when the defense of insanity
V. On the motion for a new trial two grounds of error only are alleged in this court. The first one does not appear in the record. The recital of a fact in a motion for a new trial does not establish it as a fact, or make it a part of the record. If it did we should approve the course of the court below on that matter.
“ Upon the trial of any indictment or information for any offense, where by law there may be conviction of different degrees of such offense, the jury, if they convict the defendant, shall specify in their verdict of what degree of the offense they find the defendant guilty.”
The statute is plain and positive. A long train of decisions in other States have held such a defect fatal. McGee v. State, 8 Mo., 495; State v. Upton, 20 Mo., 400;
We are referred to the instructions of the court to show that murder in the first degree is what the jury intended by the verdict; and we find it so. But the verdiet must speak for itself. If we are to go elsewhere for it, then the verdict is made up by construction and comparison, not by the words of the jury, made under the-solemn sanction of their oaths, l We might as well look to the evidence as to the instructions. We cannot by construction say a man must die upon- a verdict of “ guilty as charged,” upon an information that contains in its one chargé of murder in the first degree, charges also of murder in the second degree, and manslaughter in four degrees, and of either of which he might have been found guilty under the same information, and for either of which a lighter punishment is inflicted. The information is good. Because the verdict is not sufficient to base a judgment upon, the judgment is reversed, and a new trial awarded, as asked by appellant.