State v. Cooper

Citations

• 112 La. 281
• 36 So. 350
• 1904 La. LEXIS 392

Syllabus

<p>MURDER — EVIDENCE—QUESTION EOR JURY-COOLING TIME.</p> <p>1. On the trial of the defendant for murder, he offered to prove by his daughter that about 30 minutes before the homicide she had told her father that, two days before the homicide, the deceased had gone to her house and outraged her person; that this was the first time she had met her father since the occurrence; that, on being so told, he left her, and, returning in' about 30 minutes, told her he had killed the deceased. Objection being made on the ground that the testimony was irrelevant, immaterial, and incompetent, and would not justify or excuse the killing, the court sustained the objections. Held, that the testimony was not irrelevant, incompetent, or immaterial, but might have had an all-important bearing in the case, not for the purpose of justifying or excusing the homicide, but possibly reducing the offense from murder to manslaughter, as having been done in hot blood and the heat of passion, on adequate provocation. The accused had the right to present his defense from that standpoint to the jury. The facts themselves which were urged in defense were authorized to be shown, and, being shown, it was for the jury to determine as a fact, and not for the court to decide (thereby practically cutting off the defense), whether there had been sufficient cooling time, or not, to bring the case down to one of manslaughter. Juries, in Louisiana, are, in criminal cases, judges both of the law and the evidence. The question of reasonable “cooling time” is one of fact. Rex v. Playward, 6 Car. & P. 1; Rex v. Lynch, 5 Car. & P. § 24; Wharton’s Criminal Law (4th Ed.) § 900; 1 Russel) on Crimes; Rice on Criminal Evidence, § 369, pp. 592, 593.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p>