129 Iowa 259 | Iowa | 1906
Defendant was put on trial for murder in the first degree, alleged to have been committed by striking one Moynihan on the head with a long round piece of iron, inflicting a mortal wound, from which said Moynihan soon after died. The evidence tended to show that defendant accosted the deceased on the street in the village of Walford with some reference to a difficulty which had occurred between them the preceding day on Moynihan’s farm near the village, and invited him to throw down some pieces of iron implements which he was carrying on his arm and engage in personal combat; that Moynihan declined the invitation to combat and threw one of the pieces of iron at the defendant; that defendant then exclaimed in an angry manner that he would “ get something that will fix you,” and ran about forty’feet to where there was an old horse power standing near to a building occupied by defendant for the storing of some kind of agricultural implements or fixtures, and picked up a piece of iron rod about five feet long, with which he returned to Moynihan and struck him on the head, causing him to fall to the.
error to admit the rod in evidence. But the witnesses testified that this piece of rod was picked up at about the place where defendant threAv down the rod with Avhieh deceased had been struck, and that it corresponded in length and thickness with the one defendant used. Even if it Avas not sufficiently shown to be the identical piece of iron used, it served to illustrate the act of defendant, and no prejudice could have resulted from its introduction. State v. Tyler, 122 Iowa, 125; State v. Gray, 116 Iowa, 231. The rod introduced in evidence was not relied upon in any way as tending to connect the defendant with the crime, and therefore the case is clearly distinguishable from State v. Phillips, 118 Iowa, 660.
Some objections to instructions not already specifically noticed are made in argument, but -we are satisfied, on the reading of the instructions referred to, that they are not open to the objections made.
Finding no error in the record, the conviction of defendant and sentence imposed upon him by the trial court are affirmed.