OCR Text |
Show BLOWS THAT STRIKE THE HEART. The supreme court of Idaho has held Edgar M. Heigho, formerly of Utah, to the district court at Weiser on the charge of manslaughter, manslaugh-ter, and in its syllabus says : 1.. Under the provisions of the revised codes, involuntary killing of a human being is defined to be "The unlawful killing of a human being in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to felony ; or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death, in an unlawful manner or without due caution or circumstances." 2.. Under the statutes of this state, an unlawful killing, though unintentional and involuntary, if accomplished by one while engaged en-gaged in the commission of an unlawful act, is manslaughter, and the statute does not circumscribe the means or agencies causing the death. This statute covers and includes any and all means and mediums by or through which a death is caused by one engaged in an unlawful act. 3. . Under the statute of this state, a prosecution for manslaughter may be had where the death of a human being has been caused or accomplished through fight, fear, terror or nervous shock produced by the accused while in the commission of an unlawful act, even though the accused made no hostile demonstration and directed no overt act at the person of the deceased. It would seem that in some instances force or violence may be applied to the mind or nervous system as efectually as to the body. That is good law. The blows' of greatest force are those that strike atvtho mind. When a man commits an unlawful act which causes a woman to fall dead, as in this case, though he does not inflict physical blows, that man should be held for manslaughter. Of course it is for a jury to decide the facts and to determine whether the row, as in this case, which led up to the death, was provoked by the defendant. A man may be forced into a fight with another, in the presence of the aggressor's wife, and the woman may fall dead from fright and nervous shock. The man who was on the defensive could not be held responsible. But if conditions are reversed, re-versed, then the aggressor is guilty of a serious crime, which the supreme court of Idaho says thc statutes of that state have raised to the grade of manslaughter. |