Opinion
No. 39957.
March 12, 1956.
1. Homicide — evidence — sufficient to warrant murder instruction — insufficient to limit crime to manslaughter.
In murder prosecution, evidence was sufficient to warrant granting of murder instruction but not sufficient to warrant instruction to limit crime to manslaughter.
2. Homicide — evidence — murder conviction sustained.
Evidence was sufficient to sustain murder conviction.
Headnotes as approved by Arrington, J.
APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Jones County; LUNSFORD CASEY, Judge.
Lampkin Butts, Laurel, for appellant.
I. The Court erred in granting the State the following instruction: "The Court charges the jury for the State that although malice in murder is what is called `malice aforethought,' yet there is no particular length of time during which it is necessary that it should have existed, or during which the defendant should have contemplated the homicide. If the intent to kill is executed the instant after it springs into the mind, the offense is as truly murder as if it had dwelt there for a longer time, and if you believe in this case from all the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did unlawfully, willfully, feloniously and of his malice aforethought kill and murder Maudie Lee Crosby, a human being, then it is your sworn duty to find the defendant guilty as charged." McDonald v. State, 78 Miss. 369, 29 So. 171.
II. The evidence shows at most manslaughter, not murder.
III. Judge Samuel Leibowitz of New York, who was in his days as an active practitioner among the great attorneys representing defendants in criminal cases, is often quoted as having said that criminal suits are not lawsuits, but fact suits. It was always his contention that the criminal law, as such, was clear and definite by comparison to the civil law; and that the primary question was application of that law to the facts. The instant case is, in counsel's opinion, an apt demonstration of the truth of Judge Leibowitz's observations. The question of fact in this case is, actually, whether Tom Ruffin ever entertained malice aforethought. If the evidence failed to show such malice, then the Trial Court erred in refusing defendant's motion at the conclusion of the State's case that the jury be instructed that they could find the defendant guilty of no greater offense than manslaughter, and in refusing defendant's requested instruction at the conclusion of the case to the same effect. If the evidence does not reveal such malice, the jury verdict was contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence.
John H. Price, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
I. The Court was correct in granting the State the instruction complained of. Huddleston v. State, 134 Miss. 382, 98 So. 839; Eaton v. State, 163 Miss. 130, 140 So. 729; Busby v. State, 177 Miss. 68, 170 So. 140.
II. The jury was warranted in finding appellant guilty of murder.
III. If appellant was angry upon finding that Maudie Lee had left the house against his instruction when he returned home about 5 o'clock Saturday afternoon, his anger had sufficient time to cool before he told Arthur Rainey about 6:30 o'clock p.m. that he was in doubt as to whether to break Maudie Lee's neck, and there was surely time for his anger to have cooled prior to the time that he commenced to beat Maudie Lee to death at about 8 o'clock p.m. Likewise, according to Alma Hearn's testimony he stopped beating the deceased the first time to get something to eat and then commenced beating her again. Surely, it was reasonable for the jury to infer malice aforethought on the part of the appellant at the time he beat and killed the deceased from all of the evidence in this case.
The appellant, Tom Ruffin, was indicted, tried and convicted of the murder of Maudie Lee Crosby, and sentenced to life imprisonment in the State penitentiary, from which judgment he appeals.
The record in this case shows that the appellant and the deceased, his paramour, were living together as husband and wife; that on February 5, 1955, the appellant told the deceased to stay at home; the deceased, however, left the home and the appellant discovered her absence; that while he was looking for her, she returned home; that the appellant later came in and found the deceased in bed. Then, according to several eye witnesses for the State, the appellant beat the deceased to death with his fists at a time when the deceased was helpless and in no condition to defend herself. According to the doctor who performed an autopsy, the cause of death was a blood clot caused by blows to the head; that the blood clot covered the entire brain and was the cause of death; that there were forty or fifty bruises on the face, head and body of the deceased.
The appellant assigns as error, first, the granting of a murder instruction for the state; second, that the court erred in refusing the appellant's requested instruction that the appellant could be convicted of no greater crime than manslaughter; and, third, that the verdict is contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence.
(Hn 1) The appellant exercised his constitutional right and did not testify in his own behalf, and there was no substantial conflict in the testimony of the eye witnesses on behalf of the State. This was a straight issue of fact. The appellant obtained two manslaughter instructions, thus, the determination of the crime was for the jury. We are of the opinion that there was no element of manslaughter in this case, and it follows that the court committed no error in granting the State the murder instruction and in refusing the requested instruction of appellant to limit the crime to manslaughter. (Hn 2) We find no reversible error in this record and no merit in the contention that the verdict of the jury is contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence.
Affirmed.
McGehee, C.J., and Lee, Holmes, and Ethridge, JJ., concur.