[Download] "State v. Maestas" by In the Supreme Court of the State of Montana # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: State v. Maestas
- Author : In the Supreme Court of the State of Montana
- Release Date : January 09, 2006
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 58 KB
Description
after stating the facts as above: The defendant states in his confession that, with axe in hand, he pursued Allen Phillips over the snow-covered pasture, across a barbed-wire fence, overtook him in the road leading to the barn, struck him a lethal blow on the head with the axe, felled and silenced him, robbed him and left him for dead. These facts alone, if true, and the jury has accepted them as such, render the legal questions debated on brief, assuming the defendants sanity, somewhat pedantic or academic. He certainly was not fighting in his own self-protection when his antagonist was trying to get away from him, and he does not so contend. His defense of drunkenness and mental irresponsibility was rejected by the jury. He could not have been very drunk when, with axe in hand, he chased Phillips a distance of some 40 or 50 yards, across the pasture, over a barbed-wire fence, down the road, and slew him. Nevertheless, he was given full benefit of his contention of inebriacy and mental deficiency in the courts charge to the jury. S. v. Ross, 193 N.C. 25, 136 S.E. 193, as witness the following: "... while the defendant has no burden so far as establishing a lack of premeditation and deliberation -- the State has the burden of showing that beyond all reasonable doubt before it can obtain a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree -- at the same time if the defendant has satisfied you that he did not have the mental capacity because of his drunkenness to deliberate and premeditate, he could not be guilty of murder in the first degree." Accordant: S. v. Swink, 229 N.C. 123, 47 S.E.2d 852; S. v. Harris, 223 N.C. 697, 28 S.E.2d 232.