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29 Mo. 215

State v. Cushing

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided October 15, 1859

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1859-10-15

Franpois Circuit Court. The following is a portion of the charge of the court to the jury: “ Murder in the second decree differs from murder in the first degree more in the nature and quality of the evidence necessary in each degree than in the character of the constituent facts pertaining to each; for, in murder in the first degree the law requires that the deliberate purpose to take life or do some great bodily harm should be shown and established by the evidence, and by…

Relies on State v. Phillips · State v. Lamb

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1859-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently February 1922

8 state decisions

4018591860187018801890190019101920decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Napton, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2An examination of the testimony in this case has satisfied us that if the jury committed any error in their verdict, it was an error in favor of the accused.

¶3The instructions upon which the case was tried are substantially correct. The one chiefly complained of, concerning murder in the second degree, appears to, conform-to the views expressed by this court in the case of the State v. Phillips & Ross, 24 Mo. 488.)

¶4The instructions asked by .the defendant were, in our opinion, properly refused. The first is an instruction directing the jury to disregard the entire evidence of a witness, if they believe him false in any particular. Such instructions invade the province of the jury, whose business it is to determine the credibility of witnesses, and who are not to be hampered in exercising their judgment by any inflexible rules on the subject. The second instruction is a comment on the testimony, which, under our practice, is not permitted, and so is the third. The fourth is not law.

¶5The proof of the venue in this case was a matter for the jury. (State v. Lamb, 28 Mo. 228.) The judgment is affirmed;

the other judges concur.
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