State v. Newton

Citations

• 74 Kan. 561
• 87 P. 757
• 1906 Kan. LEXIS 103

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Constitutional Law — Trial for Capital Crime — Information. Article 5 of the amendments to the constitution of the United States is applicable only to proceedings in the federal courts, and not to proceedings in the courts of the states. There is no repugnancy between that constitutional provision and the statutes of this state providing for the trial of capital and infamous crimes upon presentment by information based upon a preliminary examination. (The State of Kansas v. Barnett, 3 Kan. 250, 87 Am. Dec. 471.)</p> <p>2. Criminal Law- — ■Instruction on Lower Degree of Offense Charged. Where, in a criminal prosecution upon a charge of murder in the first degree, the evidence points so strongly to the guilt of the accused in the highest degree of the crime as practically to exclude any theory of guilt in a lower degree, and where the evidence does not naturally suggest the absence of premeditation and deliberation in the commission thereof as probable, still it is the duty of the trial court to define and instruct in reference to all lower degrees of the crime of which there is any reasonable theory of guilt under the evidence.</p> <p>3. -Failure to Bequest Instruction — Error Cured. In such a case, however, it is not reversible error for the court to omit to define any lower degree of the crime or to instruct in reference to it unless its attention is challenged thereto by a request for such instruction.</p>