Jackson v. State
Jackson v. State
Opinion of the Court
The plaintiff in error, Melton Jackson, was convicted of the offense of murder, without a recommendation. His motion for a new trial was overruled, and he excepted. From the brief of evidence it appears that the accused shot and killed Ed Hawkins. The circumstances at the precise time of the homicide, as developed in the evidence, do not appear to present any- justification for the killing, but the defendant in his statement says that the deceased attempted to draw a weapon, and he claims to have fired the fatal shot under the fears of a reasonable man that he was in imminent danger of losing his life. 'There was testimony in behalf of the defendant that the deceased, Hawkins, had gone to the home of the defendant during his absence on the Sunday in question, and had made an assault upon his wife with the intent of having sexual intercourse with her. A witness was introduced to whom the wife made complaint immediately after the departure of Hawkins from her dwelling, and according to the testimony for the prosecution Hawkins did not deny the charge when it was made by Jackson, the husband, but insisted that they “reason” or talk the matter over. The general grounds of the motion for a new trial need not be discussed, because this feature of the-motion is not argued in the brief. The special grounds of exception here insisted upon are contained in the amended motion for a new trial.
In the first ground of the amendment to the motion for a new trial it is insisted that the defendant relied on two defenses: (1) that Hawkins “was-about to commit a felony upon” him, “or at least the circumstances were of such nature that they were sufficient to excite the fears of Melton Jackson, he being a reasonable man, that a felony was about to be committed upon him,
The second ’ground of the amendment to the motion for a new trial is based upon the contention that if the defendant was not entitled to a verdict of not guilty, the evidence in the case as well as the statement of the defendant “almost demanded” a verdict of voluntary manslaughter. The complaint is made that the instructions as to voluntary manslaughter were so mixed up with the charge on the subject of murder that the jury were confused, and that “it was error to so mix it that the minds of the jury could be easily confused on those different salient points.”
• In the third ground complaint is made that the judge nowhere charged the law as laid down in section 65 of the Penal Code, so as to apply the exception “other equivalent circumstances to justify the existence of passion and to exclude all idea of deliberation or malice, either express or implied,” otherwise than to the charge of. murder, and that such failure took away the right of the jury
In the fourth ground of the amended motion (though numbered 3) exception is taken to the charge that “The law will sometimes excuse the husband for slaying the seducer of his wife after the guilty act is over, if he acts promptly and in the burst of that passionate indignation which overwhelms him, if such be the case, upon discovering the guilty act, if such act has been committed, or the circumstances are such as to justify a reasonable mind in believing that such an act has immediately taken place.” The error assigned upon this point is placed upon three grounds: (1) Because by the use of the word ’“sometimes,” and not at all times, the jury would not know when it would excuse and when not excuse. (2) Because the instruction was limited to excusing the slayer, but made no reference to mitigation of the offense and reducing the homicide to a lower grade without excusing it. (3) Because the instruction gives “a state of facts justifying a verdict of voluntary manslaughter, and yet limits the instruction only to entire justification, without in connection therewith stating that the jury would be authorized under such state of facts to find the defendant guilty of only the lower grade of homicide, voluntary manslaughter.
In the fifth ground, numbered 4, error is assigned upon the following instruction: “In other words, a man may in good faith defend his wife’s virtue on the same principles of reason and justice that he might defend his own person, and be justifiable in doing so, if the killing be necessary in order to prevent adultery or sexual intercourse on the part of the person killed with the wife of the person killing; but the law will not justify him in deliberately killing a man for a past or accomplished act of sexual intercourse
In another ground complaint is made that the court instructed the jury as set forth in the ground immediately preceding, for the second time, near the completion of his charge. This instruction is assigned as error, “because, by repeating this charge as a summary right at the conclusion of the instructions or near the conclusion, it unduly emphasizes that view of the case and forces on the minds of the jury by repetition and emphasis the idea that such charge is the chief law of the case in that connection, and thus circumscribes the rights of the jury in their deliberation to that one idea, that if the killing was after the adultery or outrage or attempted outrage there could not only be no justification but there could be no mitigation, and that they must under those circumstances find the defendant guilty of murder. The instruction is further assigned as error for all the reasons set out in ground numbered 4.
In the last ground is assigned as error the charge that “Provocation by words, threats, menaces, or contemptuous gestures shall in no case be sufficient to free the person killing from the guilt and crime of murder,” “without more, because words, threats, or menaces may justify the killing if the circumstances are such as to arouse the fears of a reasonable man that a felony is about to be committed upon him.”
We have very carefully reviewed the brief 'of the evidence in
Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.