The refusal of the trial court to grant a new trial cannot be
assigned for error in this Court.
In the trial of a person for murder, the court in substance
instructed the jury that, while manslaughter was the intentional
taking of human life, the distinguishing trait between it and
murder was the absence of malice, that manslaughter sprang from a
gross provocation, which rendered the party temporarily incapable
of the cool reflection which would otherwise make the act murder,
and that, while the law did not wholly excuse the offense in such
case, it reduced it from murder to manslaughter.
Held that
this, being for the benefit of the accused, was not error of which
he could complain.
An instruction in such case that if the circumstances were such
as to produce upon the mind of the accused, as a reasonably prudent
man, the impression that he could save his own life or protect
himself from serious bodily harm only by taking the life of his
assailant, he was justified by the law in resorting to such means,
unless he went to where the deceased was for the purpose of
provoking a difficulty in order that he might slay his adversary,
is not error.
Page 165 U. S. 185
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff in error, C. L. Addington, and one T.D. Buchannon,
"late of the Choctaw Nation, Red River County, Indian Territory,"
were charged by indictment in the Circuit Court of the United
States for the Eastern District of Texas with the crime of having,
on the 28th day of June, 1895, in said county, killed and murdered
one Oscar Hodges, "a white person, and not an Indian nor a citizen
of the Indian Territory nor a citizen of any Indian nation or
tribe."
The defendants pleaded separately not guilty. Buchannon was
found not guilty, and Addington was found guilty of murder, as
charged in the indictment. A motion by Addington for a new trial
having been made and overruled, the accused was sentenced to suffer
death by hanging.
Addington subsequently moved in arrest of judgment, upon various
grounds, and that motion was overruled.
1. The first ten assignments of error are based upon a bill of
exceptions setting out simply the grounds upon which the accused
asked that a new trial be granted to him. It is only necessary to
say that the refusal of the court to grant a new trial cannot be
assigned for error in this Court.
Blitz v. United States,
153 U. S.
312.
2. The eleventh assignment of error relates to the instruction
given upon the subject of manslaughter. That instruction was in
these words:
"Manslaughter, as applied to a case of this character, is the
intentional taking of human life, but the distinguishing trait
between manslaughter and murder is the absence of malice. It must
spring from a gross provocation, and of such character as to
temporarily render the party incapable of that cool reflection that
otherwise makes it murder. Of course, the defendant intends to do
what he does, but he
Page 165 U. S. 186
must be laboring at the time he performs the act under intense
mental excitement such as would render any ordinarily prudent
person for the time being incapable of that cool reflection that
otherwise makes it murder. In that state of case, the law does not
wholly excuse the offense; but the law, in its charity for the
imperfections and weakness of human nature, reduces it from murder
to manslaughter."
The statutes of the United States provide that any person who,
within any of the places or upon any of the waters described in
section fifty-three hundred and thirty-nine,
"unlawfully and willfully, but without malice, strikes, stabs,
wounds or shoots at, or otherwise injures another, of which
striking, stabbing, wounding or shooting or other injury such other
person dies, either on land or sea, within or without the United
States, is guilty of the crime of manslaughter."
The accused contends that under this statute, the taking of
human life without malice, even though it be intentional, is not
manslaughter unless the act be done "unlawfully and willfully," and
that the instruction given was erroneous in that it did not
instruct the jury that before they could convict of manslaughter,
it must appear from the evidence that the killing was not only
intentional, but was unlawful and willful.
The only purpose of the court in this part of its charge was to
bring out the distinction between murder and manslaughter and to
inform the jury that they could not find the accused guilty of
murder if the killing, although intentional, was without malice.
This was for the benefit, and not to the prejudice, of the
accused.
But it is said that the accused may have killed his adversary in
self-defense. The court did not overlook this part of the case. It
further instructed the jury:
"The homicide becomes justifiable when the party that is charged
with taking human life has been unlawfully assaulted himself by his
adversary, and is placed in a position of peril, where his life is
about to be taken, or serious bodily harm is about to be done him,
or, from the acts of his adversary, it reasonably indicates to the
defendant, or would reasonably indicate to
Page 165 U. S. 187
the mind of any other person situated as the defendant was, an
intention, coupled with the ability upon the part of his adversary
to take his life or do him serious bodily harm. In that state of
the case, it is his duty to avoid the threatened danger if he can,
but he is authorized to use all reasonable means at his command to
avert the threatened danger, and, if necessary, he is authorized to
go to the extent of taking human life in his own proper
self-defense."
If this instruction stood alone, there might be some ground to
contend that it was inconsistent with the right of self-defense as
defined in
Beard's Case, 158 U. S. 550. But
the court further said:
"If you believe from the testimony that the said Addington was
attacked by said Hodges without having produced the occasion for
the assault, and that the acts of Hodges then showed to the mind of
Mr. Addington, situated as he was, a present intention upon the
part of Hodges either to take his life or do him serious bodily
harm, or that it would have produced that impression upon the mind
of any reasonably prudent person situated as Addington was, that
Hodges was then about to kill him or do him serious bodily harm,
and you further believe that the means he used were the only
reasonable means at his command to avert the threatened danger, and
that he only fired in his own actual self-defense, not actuated by
malice, and did not go there for the purpose of provoking this
difficulty for the purpose of killing Hodges, you will find the
defendant not guilty as charged in this indictment."
This instruction is not liable to the objection that it
recognized Addington's right to take the life of his adversary only
upon its appearing that he was in fact in actual danger of losing
his own life or of receiving serious bodily harm. On the contrary,
the court said in substance that if the circumstances were such as
to produce upon the mind of Addington, as a reasonably prudent man,
the impression that he could save his own life or protect himself
from serious bodily harm only by taking the life of this assailant,
he was justified by the law in resorting to such means, unless he
went to where the deceased was for the purpose of provoking a
difficulty in
Page 165 U. S. 188
order that he might slay his adversary. In so instructing the
jury, no error was committed.
We find no error of law in the record to the prejudice of the
accused, and the judgment must therefore be
Affirmed.