Caseflicks

Supreme Court of Missouri • 1902

State v. Mitchell

170 Mo. 633 | 71 S.W. 175 | 1902 Mo. LEXIS 93

Full access

Unlock the video and quiz

The written brief is free to read below. Subscribe to watch the video explainer and take the quiz.

Create an account Log in

Takeaway

In short, a defendant commits an attempt when he acts with the intent and apparent ability to commit the crime, even if an unknown fact—such as the victim’s absence from the targeted room—makes completion impossible.

Background

Newton Mitchell was charged in Clinton County with attempting to murder John O. Warren and, in a separate count, assault with intent to kill. The State alleged that Mitchell, acting with Charles Wilhoit, fired a revolver through a window of Warren’s home while believing Warren was inside at the point toward which he fired. The jury acquitted Mitchell on the assault count but convicted him of attempted murder and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment.

The evidence showed that Mitchell had formerly boarded with Warren and had expressed interest in Warren’s wife, including statements that Warren should be “out of the way.” On the night of the shooting, witnesses placed Mitchell, wearing a light-colored coat, near Warren’s home with a taller man in a dark coat. Two shots were fired through a window: one bullet entered a downstairs pillow and another struck a dresser. Warren, however, had gone upstairs to bed. Mitchell denied being near the house, but other evidence connected him to a pistol, to the scene, and to conduct suggesting consciousness of guilt.

On appeal, Mitchell argued that the attempted-murder count was legally insufficient because Warren was not actually in the downstairs room where the shots were aimed. He also challenged the jury instruction setting the punishment range at two to fifteen years.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether an information for attempted murder is insufficient when the intended victim was not actually where the defendant believed him to be when the defendant fired.

Holding

No. The information sufficiently alleged, and the evidence sufficiently established, an attempted murder even though Warren was not in the room where Mitchell thought he was sleeping.

Reasoning

Missouri’s attempt statute punishes a person who attempts an offense prohibited by law, performs an act toward its commission, and fails or is prevented from completing it. The information alleged that Mitchell deliberately fired a loaded revolver through Warren’s window, toward the place where he believed Warren to be, intending to kill him. Those allegations described both the required intent and an overt act adapted to carrying out the intended murder.

The Court treated Warren’s absence from the downstairs room as an extrinsic fact that did not erase the attempt. Mitchell had the apparent present capacity to kill Warren if Warren had been where Mitchell believed him to be, and the criminal purpose failed only because Warren had retired upstairs. A defendant cannot avoid attempt liability merely because a circumstance unknown to him made completion impossible in that particular instance.

The Court relied by analogy on attempted-larceny cases in which a defendant thrusts a hand into an empty pocket. The attempt is complete when the defendant acts with criminal intent and takes a step suited to committing the crime; the fact that the pocket is empty, or that the victim is elsewhere, does not excuse the defendant’s conduct. Here, firing a pistol into the room where Mitchell believed Warren was sleeping was a direct and dangerous step toward murder.

Issue #2

Whether the trial court gave an erroneous punishment instruction by authorizing a sentence of two to fifteen years for the attempted offense.

Holding

No. The instruction correctly applied the statutory punishment range for an attempt to commit first-degree murder.

Reasoning

The information and the proof characterized Mitchell’s intended killing as willful, deliberate, premeditated, and malicious. On the Court’s view, the evidence of firing into Warren’s home with a deadly weapon after prior threats and expressions of hostility supported no lesser characterization than an attempted first-degree murder.

Under Revised Statutes 1899, section 2360, an attempt to commit an offense punishable by death carries a penitentiary term of not less than two and not more than fifteen years. Because first-degree murder was then punishable by death, the trial court properly instructed the jury on that two-to-fifteen-year range. Mitchell’s five-year sentence therefore rested on a correct instruction.