181 Ky. 519 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1918
Opinion of the Court by
Affirming.
Tlae appellant Ulrich, was accused by indictment’ and convicted of administering poison to his wife which produced her death. His punishment was fixed at life imprisonment. On this appeal, while assigning several errors, he relies chiefly for reversal upon what he asserts was the admission of incompetent evidence as a dying declaration. Appellant and deceased had not lived together for more than two years before her death. Appellant married her under protest, and soon after he had been arrested and placed in jail on a bastardy charge. He lived with her only a short time and abandoned her.although he lived within a few blocks of her home. Deceased seemed to love her husband and frequently visited him at his father’s home, but he never went to see her. ■ After he abandoned his wife he became enamored of another young woman in the. neighborhood who bore him a child. He had sought to get a divorce from deceased, and had stated to different persons that he hoped to be rid of her. On the night before her death the wife went to see appellant at his home. Appellant says he met her on the street, and admits that he gave her a package of paris green, which he says he purchased at' her behest, she providing the money with which to pay for it. After the death of the wife the coroner was called, in and an autopsy and inquest were held. It was
Beviewing the authorities we are firmly of the opinion that it is not necessary to entitle a statement to be
It is next complained tliat the trial court erred in sustaining objections to certain questions pertaining to a certain insurance policy carried upon the life of the deceased. The questions were intended to elicit answers relative to a suicide clause in the policy. We have carefully examined the evidence and considered.the ruling of the court thereon, and are of opinion that no error was committed in this respect.
Complaint is also made that defendant was not allowed to show that the prescriptions given by Dr. Dingby ¿0 appellant a few days before the death of his wife, designated medicine ordinarily used for kidney and bladder trouble with which defendant claimed to be afflicted. We have considered the applicability and relevancy of this evidence and are unable to see why it was important. We do not think it germane to the subject under investigation in the light of all the circumstances.
Appellant also called Dr. Ricketts as a witness and propounded to him certain hypothetical questions concerning the psychology features of the case, to which questions objections were sustained by the court. Psychological questions sometimes enter into the consideration of criminal cases, but we conceive it utterly impossible for a psychologist or other scientists, under the limited facts embraced in the hypothetical questions propounded to determine with a degree of certainty upon which to base an opinion that the deceased did or did not commit suicide.. The doctor’s opinion could have been nothing more than conjecture. The'record contains the questions propounded and avowals made which we have
After the defendant had loft the stand he was recalled for the purpose of correcting a statement with reference to the time he left his home in the afternoon before the death of his wife. He is not accused of being present at the time of'her death. Whatever he did, if anything, to induce her death, was done on the evening before. Whether he remained all day at his house on Saturday, the day of her death, is wholly immaterial, and the court would not have committed prejudicial error had it declined to allow him to correct an immaterial statement. From the reading of the record, however, we are convinced that the facts were placed before the jury.
The defendant was accused of murder by administering poison to his wife. If she took sick and died a natural death he was not responsible nor was he accountable if she committed suicide, or took the drug by accident. It was, therefore, unnecessary, if indeed not improper, to again have instructed the jury to find- the defendant not guilty if the deceased came to her death by suicide,in view of the fact that the jury was instructed that defendant could only be found guilty if the jury believed, from all the evidence, to the exclusion of a reasonable doubt, that defendant had administered the poison, and in any other event to find him not guilty. Another instruction told the jury to find the defendant not guilty, if from all the evidence, they entertained a reasonable doubt of his guilt. The instructions fairly submitted the only questions for the consideration of the jury, .and they were—did the appellant furnish the paris green to his wife to be- used internally by her for medical purposes, and did her death result as a consequence, she being ignorant of the nature of the drug? If he did not do so, he was not guilty, if he did furnish the drug in the manner aforesaid, then he was guilty of murder, These questions were properly presented to the jury for their consideration, and appellant was found guilty. We do not hesitate to concur in the finding of fact made by the jury from all the evidence.
No prejudicial error having intervened, the judgment is affirmed.