Opinion
No. 35973.
February 11, 1946.
HOMICIDE.
Evidence warranted conviction of defendant for murder of wife as against defense of insanity.
APPEAL from the circuit court of Panola county, HON. JNO. M. KUYKENDALL, Judge.
J.D. Boyles, D.R. Johnson and J.E. Johnson, all of Batesville, for appellant.
It was error for the state on the trial of the appellant in the court below not to have assumed the burden of proof as to the appellant's sanity at the time of the killing, the appellant by his evidence as well as the state's evidence to the facts and circumstances of the killing having raised a reasonable doubt of his sanity.
Waycaster v. State, 185 Miss. 25, 187 So. 205; Carter v. State, 198 Miss. 523, 21 So.2d 404.
The courts are agreed that the one who at the time of the commission of the homicide is partially insane, that is, subject to delusions as to some matters, but in other respects sane, is not criminally responsible if the homicide would be excusable or justifiable were the facts such as his delusion leads him to believe.
29 C.. 1054, Sec. 15 (e); 40 C.J.S. 828, Sec. 4 (d, e).
The courts are agreed that one who acted under the influence of an irresistable impulse produced by disease of the mind is not criminally responsible for his act in committing a homicide, if at the time of the commission of the act, such disease was sufficient to render him incapable of understanding the nature of his act or of knowing that it was wrong. In many jurisdictions it is held that, although one committing a homicide had the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong as to his act; still he is not responsible if, by reason of duress of mental disease, he had so far lost the power to choose between right and wrong as not to be able to avoid doing the act, so that his free agency was at the time destroyed.
29 C.J. 1053, Sec. 14(d); 40 C.J.S. 828, Sec. 4(d).
It has been held that an insane delusion which does not entirely relieve accused from criminal responsibility may nevertheless create such passion and agitation as to warrant conviction for manslaughter only.
Hughey v. State (Miss.), 106 So. 361; 40 C.J.S. 829, subdivision (e).
Greek L. Rice, Attorney General, by Geo. H. Ethridge, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
It is not necessary to enter special plea of insanity because there is no statute requiring that issue to be separately tried; and, wherever the common law has not been modified by constitutional or statutory provisions, the common law prevails.
23 C.J.S. 242, Sec. 940, clause "C".
The question of insanity at the time of the commission of the crime is tried under plea of not guilty.
Howie v. State, 121 Miss. 197, 83 So. 158, 10 A.L.R. 205; Lewis v. State, 155 Miss. 810, 125 So. 419.
The statute undertaking to deny defendant the right to set up insanity as a defense to crime held unconstitutional and violative of "due process clause" of state and federal constitutions.
Sinclair v. State, 161 Miss. 142, 132 So. 581; Louisiana v. Lange, 67 A.L.R. 1447.
Insanity as defense in criminal prosecutions is a question of fact for the jury.
Garner v. State, 112 Miss. 317, 73 So. 50; Smith v. State, 95 Miss. 786, 49 So. 945, 27 L.R.A. (N.S.) 461; Louisiana v. Lange, supra; 14 R.C.L. 607.
The presumption prevails that, when a person commits an act deliberately and consciously, he intends to accomplish whatever the probable and natural results of that act would be.
Heard v. State, 177 Miss. 661, 171 So. 775.
Mere frenzy or ungovernable passion which controls the will or motives is not insanity sufficient to excuse crime.
Eatman v. State, 169 Miss. 295, 153 So. 381; Garner v. State, supra; Hoye v. State, 169 Miss. 111, 152 So. 644; Smith v. State, supra.
Argued orally by Jas. B. Boyles, for appellant, and by Geo. H. Ethridge, for appellee.
This appeal is from a death sentence imposed upon the appellant, Oscar Tyler, for the murder of his wife, Lela May Tyler. The only defense made to the charge is that the accused was insane at the time he inflicted the wounds from which his wife died.
The proof discloses beyond every reasonable doubt that the accused beat his wife to death with the barrel of a double-barrel shotgun, at a time when she was not trying to do him any harm. As an excuse for his act, he claims that on account of certain rumors which had come to him in regard to an alleged illicit relationship between his wife and one George Jones, and which rumors were apparently unfounded, his mind became so disturbed and confused that he did not know what he was doing at the time he was mercilessly beating her to death.
As to whether the defendant had sufficient presence of mind to distinguish between right and wrong, the evidence discloses that he stated to a Mr. Harris during the night of the killing "I reckon I ought to be dead and in hell, I have done killed my wife." He also stated, when his neighbors gathered at the home immediately following her death, and when one of them asked "Oscar, what was the matter with you," that there was nothing the matter "I done what I been intending to do for some time." And, he knew enough to immediately burn the bloody clothing of his wife on learning that she was dead, and to state to his daughter that "If the law comes, tell them I caught her with a man," but which complaint he knew was untrue.
It may be conceded that some of the actions of the defendant within an hour before the commission of the crime appear to have been foolish or irrational, but it appears that immediately before that time he had drunk a quart bottle and two pint bottles of beer, and was searching for his wife in the neighborhood immediately before he found her at home and killed her, the search being made on the theory that he would find her with the said George Jones.
It is unnecessary that we set forth the details of this savagery and brutality, the extent of which he invokes as proof of insanity, but it is sufficient to say that under all of the facts in the case, the jury was warranted in believing from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that, even though the proof fails to show that the defendant was drunk at the time of the killing, he had drunk enough beer to cause him to act in an abnormal manner and to want to kill his wife because of the gossip which he claims had been communicated to him; also that he was capable of distinguishing between right and wrong when he committed the crime.
We find no reversible error in the record, and the judgment of the trial court must therefore be affirmed. The 5th day of April, 1946, is hereby fixed as the date for the execution of the death sentence.
Affirmed.