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62 Ark. 368

Aubrey v. State

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided May 2, 1896

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1896-05-02

ChareES W. Smith, Judge. 1. The omission of the word “wilful,” and the failure to state the degree, render the indictment defective and insufficient to charge murder in the first degree. 2 Bish. Cr. Pro., sec. 576; ib. secs. 571, 587; 29 Ark. 265; 34 N. H. 510; 97 N. C. 465; 60 Ark. 564; 27 Iowa, 402; 4 Green (Iowa), 415, 500; 27 Iowa, 415; 21 Kas. 43; 64 Iowa, 333; 1 Bish. Cr. Pro., sec. 40, 43, 548, 503, 613; 618. 2. The verdict is not sustained by the evidence.

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Decided 1896-05-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently October 1934

3 state decisions

1018961900191019201930decided

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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Wood, J.

¶1The defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree, upon an indictment which charged that he “did unlawfully and feloniously, with malice aforethought, and with premeditation and deliberation, assault, kill, and murder one Rufus Harris by shooting him with a pistol, with the felonious intent to kill and murder,” etc. Does the omission of the word “wilfully” render the indictment defective as a charge for murder in the first degree ? A wilful killing is an intended killing. Both the words “deliberation” and “premeditation” involve a prior purpose to do the act in question. And it is impossible to conceive of a murder committed with a “felonious intent” that is not wilful. State v. Townsend, 24 N. W. Rep. 535; Leonard v. Territory, 7 Pac. Rep. 872, and authorities cited; State v. Shelton, 64 Iowa, 333; State v. Stackhouse, 24 Kas. 445; 1 Wharton, Cr. Law, sec. 380. We conclude therefore that the word “wilful” finds its equivalent in the other terms employed.

¶2We cannot say that the verdict is without evidence to support it.

¶3Affirmed.

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