Russian Poker Murder

The Accidental Kill: An Analysis of “Russian Poker”
On the night of February 26th, 1945, an allegedly innocent game of Russian Poker turned deadly when defendant Malone, 17, shot and killed William H. Long, 13. At the time of Long’s death, Malone and his mother were living with the Long family. The boys, according to witnesses, were on friendly terms. The gun involved belonged to Malone’s uncle – the teen had taken it the day before the incident. Oddly enough, Long obtained the bullet that would eventually kill him from his father’s room that afternoon. The two boys loaded the gun together and Malone tucked the deadly weapon away in his pocket (Behrens 184-85).
After carrying the weapon around in his jacket pocket all afternoon, the defendant and Long met at a dairy store to eat. While in the store, Malone reloaded the revolver, this time placing the bullet in the chamber to the very right of the firing pin. While the two boys sat at the bar top of the dairy store, Malone asked the decedent if he was up for a game of Russian Poker. According to Malone, Long shrugged indifferently. Taking that as a yes, Malone cocked the revolver,

Obviously, the defendant knew enough about guns to know how to load one and how to fire one. Taking this into account, it is right to assume that Malone knew that the natural consequences of firing a gun are injury or death. A gun is a lethal weapon, and anyone handling one should assume that the consequences of firing one at or in the direction of a person are often lethal. His handling and obvious knowledge of the weapon leads the reader to believe that Malone understood that the “natural consequences of the act are dangerous to human life” (Behrens “Jury” 189). The fact that the human life directly harmed by the act was supposedly Malone’s friend does nothing to negate the seriousness of the