Steagald v. State

Murder—Evidence—The Corpus Delicti being the issue under immediate inquiry, the State was permitted to ask its medical witness how, in his opinion, based upon the examination of the body, the injuries thereon were inflicted. The defense objected that the question called for the mere conclusion of the witness as an individual, and not for hig opinion as an expert, and that it involved matter upon which the jury were as competent to form an opinion as the witness. The objection was overruled, and the witness was permitted to state his opinion’ as an individual as to “the only way he could imagine the peculiar injuries were inflicted.” Held, that the objection should have been sustained, but that, in view of the other evidence in the case, the question and answer prejudiced no right of the accused; wherefore the error was immaterial. See the opinion for an elaboration of the ruling.

Appeal from the District Court of Cooke. Tried below before the Hon. F. E. Finer. The indictment in this case, which charged the appellant with the murder of the infant of his daughter, Mollie Steagald, in Clay county, Texas, on the twentieth day of January, 1886, was filed in the district court of Clay county on the sixteenth day of March, 1886, and within a few days thereafter the appellant was placed upon his trial in the district court of the said Clay county. That trial resulted in the conviction of the appellant in the first degree, the jury assessing the death penalty against him. From ■ that conviction the appellant appealed to this court, which, at its Tyler term, 1886, reversed the judgment because of error committed by the trial court in overruling the motion for new trial, which, among other reasons, was applied for because of the failure of the trial judge under the peculiar circumstances surrounding the case, to order a change of the venue upon his own motion. Upon the reversal of the case, the judge of the district court of Clay county, upon his own motion, ordered the change of venue to Cooke county, in the district court of which, at its spring term, 1887, this trial was had, resulting in the appellant’s conviction for murder in the first degree, with a life term in the penitentiary assessed as his punishment. The report of the proceedings of the first trial of the appellant, comprehending a full statement of the evidence then adduced, will be found in the twenty-second volume of the Beports, commencing on page 464. The evidence presented upon this trial was substantially the same as that adduced upon the former trial, except that, upon this trial, the counsel for the State elicited from one of the medical witnesses a more positively expressed opinion that the wounds found upon the body of the deceased were inflicted before death, proved more directly the' predicate upon which the written testimony of the witnesses residing out of the State was admitted, and produced the additional witnesses who testified to the facts set forth in the opinion of the court and in the summary which follows. Doctor S. G. Bittick, the first witness for the State, testified substantially as he did upon the first trial of the defendant. Referring to his testimony, as it will be found set out in the report of that case (22 Texas Ct. App., 464), it will be seen that he stated that when he first arrived at the house of the defendant, during the labor of his daughter Mollie, and before the birth of the child, he found no one present but defendant and his wife and an old lady whose name he did not know. Reiterating that statement upon this trial, the witness said that he had ascertained the name of the old lady since the former trial, and that it was Mrs. Candler. According to the statement of the witness on this trial, Mrs. Candler was present at the defendant’s house when witness arrived, but left the house on the evening of Friday, the day before the child was born, and had not been seen by the witness since. This witness denied that he told defendant that anything was the matter with Mollie’s liver, or that he operated on her liver. The State introduced Mrs. Candler, who testified, in substance, that she lived in Cambridge, Clay county, Texas, and lived there in January, 1886. She was then but slightly acquainted with the defendant, having seen him but a few times. On the night of January 14, 1886, the defendant came to the witness’s house and requested her to go with him to his house to see his wife, who, he said, was very sick. Witness readily consented to go home with defendant and render any service in her power to Mrs. Steagald. En route, and before reaching the house, the defendant said to witness, “You will be more surprised when you go into my house than you ever were in your life.” The witness asked him what would so surprise her, and defendant replied, “We are in a heap of trouble.” He had previously said to the witness that he had more trouble than any man living; to which the witness replied that “ people sometimes borrow their trouble.” When the witness entered the defendant’s house she found Mrs. Steagald, whom he had reported very sick, up and attending to her household affairs, in apparently perfect health. She, however, found Mollie, the defendant’s eldest daughter, sick in bed. The defendant did not tell witness what was the matter with Mollie, but witness soon found out her condition, and told defendant that he had better summon some of the other of his lady neighbors. Defendant replied that he wanted no one else at his house, that the other women talked too much. The witness then told him that he must summon a doctor. Defendant then went off and came back with Doctor Bittick. Doctor Bittick came first to the door, without going in. He then went off and returned after a while with Doctor Galloway. This was on January 15, 1886. Just before Doctor Bittick got back with Doctor Galloway, the witness observed the defendant and his wife alone together in their kitchen, and overheard the defendant tell his wife that when the doctors came she must tell them that Mollie was a girl who had been living with them some time. Mrs. Steagald replied to the defendant: “I won’t do it; if you want that told, tell it yourself.” Witness remained at the defendant’s house until about four o’clock on that evening, when she went home, was taken sick, and did not go back to the defendant’s house at all. Shortly after the witness reached the defendant’s house, the defendant asked her if she could do anything for Mollie, and said that if she could and would, he would pay her well. Shortly after that the defendant came from the kitchen into the front room, where the witness then was, and while walking across the floor he said in a loud voice, but speaking to no one in particular: “The scoundrel is gone or I would kill him!” The witness saw no infant’s clothing while she was at the defendant’s house. Mollie Steagald had never been intimate with, nor had she ever kept the company of any young man. Mrs. Steagald and her family were not living in Cambridge at the time of this trial. Mrs. McKinsey testified, for the State, that she lived in Cambridge, Clay county, Texas, in January, 1886. She had then known the defendant and all of his family about five years. The defendant’s daughter Mollie died in the defendant’s house in Cambridge, on or about January 20, 1886. The witness went to the defendant’s house on the morning of the Tuesday on which Mollie died, and remained there until Mollie’s death in the evening. When she found Mollie sick, she asked the defendant what was the matter with her. He replied that she was suffering from an abcess on the liver, which the doctor had tried to remove. About noon of the same day he corrected that statement, and said that Mollie’s affliction was abcess of the womb. The defendant remained near and about Mollie’s bed during the whole time witness was at the house. A short time before the girl’s death, the witness and other ladies decided to bathe her. The defendant interfered, and insisted on bathing her himself. Witness pushed him back, and told him that so long as she was there attending upon the sick girl, he could not bathe her. Defendant insisted that he was so accustomed to bathing his daughter that he could do it better than any one else. He yielded reluctantly, and the ladies proceeded to bathe the girl, and in doing so the witness discovered the bandages around the girl’s abdomen, and for the first time ascertained the true nature of the girl’s illness. Just after the death of Mollie, the defendant came into the front room and asked his wife, in witness’s presence, what clothes he should get for the dead girl to be buried in. Mrs. Steagald replied: “She needs everything, for she has nothing.” In reply, the defendant said to his wife: “ Don’t fret, Kate; Mollie is better off, for she is in Heaven; we will try to raise our other children better, and we will do better ourselves.” Mrs. Steagald replied: “I think it is time; I wish you had thought of that sooner.” Defendant then said: “ I will never say again that there is no Heaven and no God.” He then left the room, saying to his wife: “ Say nothing about this, Kate; just keep it quiet.” During all of the time that witness was at defendant’s house, she saw nothing of any infant’s clothes, nor did she, up to the time of Mollie’s death see anything of the child. After the inquest over Mollie’s body, some of the men found the body of an infant in the garret of defend•ant’s house. An inquest was then held upon the body of the infant, and it was then given to witness to dress. The body had never been dressed, nor had it been washed except on the face and one side of the head. The right arm was broken between the elbow and the shoulder, and was bloodshot from the wrist to the shoulder, imparting a very dark and almost purple color to the arm. The neck was also broken, and the back part ■of the skull was crushed in. Witness washed and dressed the child, and gave it to the men, who took it to Henrietta, whence it was afterwards brought back and buried in its mother’s arms. Just before Mollie’s death, the witness asked her if she thought ■she could eat anything. She replied that she felt like she would relish a little rice. Witness then proposed to .send to a neighbor’s house for some rice. This, however, the defendant would not permit her to do, saying that he had sent to town for some. Mollie Steagald had never, during the witnesses’s acquaintance with her, received the attention of any young man. She was never in the company of a young man but once that the witness ■ever heard of, and that was when, about a year before her death, the witness’s son escorted her home from church. Mollie generally attended church and parties, but usually in the company of the defendant, and invariably in company with some member of her family.