154 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

122 XY. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

Supreme Court of Missouri have said the same thing in case
of State v. Dunn, 18 Mo. 419, and State v. Jennings, 18 Mo.
435.

I will now, gentlemen of the jury, call your attention to
the several facts and circumstances showing the malice requi-
site to bring this case under the head of murder in the first
degree: 1st. The character of the wound. It is laid down in
all the books that when the wound is inflicted with a deadly
weapon or a weapon likely to produce death, and no just
cause is given for it, the jury may and ought to infer that
the party intended to do what he accomplished, for every
sane man is presumed to act upon some motive and to intend
the natural consequences of his act. If I draw a pistol and
shoot one of you down, the fact that I intended to kill is a
necessary conclusion from the act. If I throw a stick at
one of you, the length of my little finger, and it enters the
eye and inflammation takes place, and death results from the
inflammation, it would be unreasonable to infer that I in-
tended such a result; on the contrary the reverse would be
the natural inference, for such a stick is not a weapon likely
to produce death; but if I draw a bowie knife and plunge it
in the breast of one of you, and death ensues, the natural
conclusion would be that I intended to take life, and much
intent constitutes express malice.

This rule of law applies directly to this case. The prisoner
leaded a pistol at Hutchinson’s the eve before the homicide.
The body of Gordon was found with a gunshot wound in the
back part of the head ranging towards the right eye, a wound.
such ag a pistol of the character and size of the one seen in
the possession of the prisoner would be likely to produce;
6 wound evidently made by a large-sized leaden bail. Thera
is no evidence te show that he had just cause or provocation
for the act, nor has hia counsel given us any explanation of
the transaction. You are therefore foreed to the conclusion
that he intended that death should result from the act; for
death is the natural result of such a wound. The physicians
who have testified in the case say such a wound would neces-
sarily produce instantaneous death.