Reading Time: 3 minutes [382 words]

EDWARD D. WORRELL. 7

against him: Joseph Woodruff (foreman), Thomas BE. Ren-
ick, David M. Tyree, Burrell Roland, Reuben Bledsoe, Dor-
sey Waters, George Woodcock, Moses V. Kean, Jeremiah
Pierce, William T. 0. Dickinson, Jeremiah H. Williams.

MB, COALTER’S OPENING SPEECH.

Mr. Coalter. Gentlemen of the jury: At the request of
Mr. Gale, the prosecuting attorney of this circuit, I rise, gen-
tlemen, to address to you a few remarks. I do so at his re-
quest from my possessing an earlier knowledge of this case,
it being one involving a transaction in another county, and
which has been brought here by a change of venue. I hold
in my hand the indictment which was found in Warren
County, when it was brought to this court, and now proceed
to read it to you. This indictment is founded upon a statute
of your state, declaring two different grades of the erime of
murder.® The words used in these two sections have been
defined accurately by judicial construction. The word ‘‘wil-
ful’? means that a person intended to Kill. It supposes an
setual condition of the mind in regard to the killing when
the deed takes place; and the words ‘‘deliberate’’ and ‘“‘pre-
meditated’ in the act require that the killing must have
been thought of before the act of killing began to take place,
and that in order to constitute murder in the first degree,
there must be a killing with intent to kill; to do the deed at

order of Governor Fletcher under the ordinanes passed by the Con-
vention of 1864, vacating all the judicial offices in the State of
Missouri. See 35 Mo. Supreme Court Reports, pp. i. He died
at the home of his daughter in Eureka, Mo., and is buried in the
Oak Ridge Cemetery, Kirkwood, Mo. For a History of the Bay
Family see Schaff’s Hist, St. Louis, Vol. 2, p. 1477.

* Seo 2 Am. St. Rep., 207,

*Stetutes of Mo., Vol 1, pp. 558-9. “Crimes and Punishments,”
Art. 11, See. 1. “Every murder, which shall be committed by means
of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of wilful, de-
liberate and premeditated killing, or which shall be commitied in
the perpetration, or attempt to perpetrate, arson, rape, robbery,

or other felony, shall be deemed murder in the first degree”;
Bee. 2." “All other kinds of murder at common law, not herein de-
elared to be manslaughter, or justifiable or excusable homicide,
shail be deemed murder in the second degree.”

Related Posts