Minnesota Reports (Volume 123)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914. Excerpt: ... Counsel for defendant relies on cases in which this court has reversed civil and criminal cases for insufficiency of the evidence, particularly where the question was one of causal connection. He insists that these cases show that this court has not always refused to encroach upon the sanctuary of the jury's province, and that there is no force in the objection that a reversal here would involve an unjustifiable invasion of a field of inquiry foreign to and barred against this court. The rule is well established that, where there is no evidence reasonably tending to support a verdict, the duty of this court to say so is imperative, as is also the rule that a verdict that rests upon mere possibility, speculation and conjecture, will not be permitted to stand. The cases are valuable as authority only as the facts involved make them in point. As stated in Minneapolis Sash & Door Co. v. Great Northern Ry. Co. 83 Minn. 370, 86 N. W. 451, the rule must be applied to each particular issue as it arises. Without doubt, in the case at bar, it was necessary that the evidence established causal connection between the wounds inflicted by defendant and the death of Miller, in order to justify a conviction of murder in any degree. In other words, the proof must be such as to satisfy the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the germ reached the lungs through the wounds, and not by inhalation. A mere possibility is not enough, nor must it be a matter of mere conjecture. We have given careful consideration to the evidence and reach the conclusion that we ought not to say that the verdict finding that defendant caused the death of Miller is based on the mere possibility or probability that the bacillus reached Miller's lungs through the wounds inflicted by defendant, or ...