Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/287

 209 U.S. Opinion of the Court. tiff in error relied and the right he claimed under it, and the question thus presented must have been decided against him. Morrison v. Watson, 154 U.S. 111, 115, and cases there cited. MR. JuS?ICE MOODY delivered the opinion of the court, This is a writ of error by which it is sought to rexamine a judgment of the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa. The judgment affirms the conviction of the plaintiff in error of the crime of murder in the first .degree. The Code of Iowa contains the following provisions: "(4727) Whoever kills any human being with malice afore- thought, either express or implied, is guilty of murder. "(4728) All murder which is perpetrated by means of poison, or lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate and pre- meditated killing, or which is committed in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate any arson, rape, robbery, mayhem or burglary, is murder in the first degree, and shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life at hard labor in the peni- tentiary, as determined by the jury, or by the court, if the de- fendant pleads guilty. "(4729) Whoever commits murder otherwise than as set forth in the preceding section is guilty of murder of the second degree, and shall be punished by imprisonment in the peniten- tiary for life, or for a term of not less than ten years. "(4730) Upon the trial of an indictment for murder, the jury, if it finds the defendant guilty, must inquire, and by its verdict ascertain and determine the degree; but if the defendant is convicted upon a plea of guilty, the Court must, by the exami- nation of witnesses, determine the degree, and in either case must enter judgment and pass sentence accordingly." Code of Iowa, 1897, Title XXIV, ch. 2, �727-30. The count of the indictment upon which the verdict was re- turned alleged that the accused deliberately, premeditatively, and with malice aforethought murdered one Mabel Schofield by adm'mistering poison to her. The judge presiding at the

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