People v. Egnor

• Citation: 67 N.E. 906,175 N.Y. 419
• Parties: PEOPLE v. EGNOR.
• Decision Date: 24 June 1903
• Court: New York Court of Appeals

175 N.Y. 419

67 N.E. 906

PEOPLE

v.EGNOR.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 24, 1903.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Trial Term, Cayuga County.

Clarence Egnor was convicted of murder, and appeals. Affirmed.

Vann, J., dissenting.

George W. Nellis and Amasa J. Parker, for appellant.

Henry T. Dayton, for the People.

GRAY, J.

The defendant was charged in the indictment with the crime of murder in the first degree, for having killed Archibald W. Benedict, a keeper in the State Prison at Auburn, on January 9, 1901, by a blow with an iron bar and with a pistol shot. Being tried upon the indictment, he was found guilty of the crime charged, upon the verdict of a jury, and was sentenced to be put to death. That the defendant killed Benedict is not disputed, nor is it in doubt upon the evidence. The defense relied upon is that of insanity, and much evidence was admitted to show that the defendant, then in the twenty-third year of his age, was, and had been since his childhood, an epileptic. It is claimed that the killing of Benedict was the result of an attack of epileptical furor or mania, and that the defendant was insane therefrom, and hence irresponsible. He was a convict in the State Prison and on the day in question was in a workshop of the prison, and engaged, with other convicts, in the tasks assigned them. Benedict at the time was in command of the gang employed in the shop. The defendant's attack upon him was described by two witnesses of the occurrence. Whether there had been any altercation or conversation prior thereto, does not appear. Each witness, in substance, stated that, when his attention was called to the disturbance in the shop, he saw the defendant standing behind the deceased, who appeared to be in a helpless condition, with his head drooping, and with his hands down by his side, and that the defendant was drawing from the hip pocket of the deceased a revolver, which he discharged at a point in the back of his neck. One of the witnesses states that, as he turned to see what was occurring, he heard something drop on the floor, like a yardstick, and subsequently an iron bar was found upon the floor, near to where the deceased lay. After the defendant had discharged the revolver, he placed it in his pocket, put on his coat and hat, and walked out of the shop. An authority performed upon the deceased disclosed a wound upon the forehead, and a fracture of the skull, as from a blow by a blunt and heavy instrument, and a pistolshot wound in the back of the neck, at about the base of the brain, either of which might have caused death. Upon leaving the shop, after his assault upon the deceased, the defendant, seeing Martin, another of the prison keepers, approaching the shop, called him by name, and said, ‘I have killed Benedict.’ Upon Martin's asking him how he had done it, he replied, ‘I hit him on the head and shot him.’ Martin, seeing him put his hand in his pocket, asked him what he had there, to which he replied, ‘I have got his gun,’ and he gave it up. A few minutes later, when in the office of the prison jail, the defendant further said to Martin that he was sorry, and did not mean to kill Benedict, and, again: ‘I shot him. I don't know whether I killed him or not.’ The evidence showed, or tended to show, that the deceased had been severe and harsh in his treatment of the convicts under him, that the defendant was angered by his confinement in the prison jail for some breach of discipline a few days previously, and that he had expressed himself to various persons upon prior occasions in violent terms, and had manifested a vindictive and threatening demeanor towards the deceased. The evidence was sufficient to establish that the defendant killed the deceased by the blow from the bar, or by the pistol shot; that there was a motive; and that the killing was with premeditation and deliberation.

The defendant was not sworn in his own behalf, but friends and members of his family testified to insanity in relatives, and they and a physician gave evidence that when a lad the defendant was subject to seizures of an epileptic character. Some of them testified that, up to the seventeenth or eighteenth year of his age he would act in a foolish and irrational manner. Opinions of acquaintances and of associates were given, that in his conduct he impressed them as being irrational. From the evidence it was possible to infer that the disease had assumed in the defendant the form of masked or minor epilepsy. The evidence revealed conditions of birth and of environment which might affect a normal or healthful physical development, for he was conceived of an inebriate father, and was, as a child, subjected to brutal treatment and physical injury at the hands of a stepfather. It appears that a person who has suffered from epilepsy in the major form, or ‘grand mal,’ as it is technically termed, in which the expression is usually through convulsions, may later pass into the stage of minor epilepsy, or ‘petit mal,’ which is the more dangerous form, because of liability to sudden attacks of maniacal paroxysms or of epileptic furor. The victim of such attacks is unconscious of his conduct, and usually, but not universally, will not remember what has occurred. During the four or five years prior to the homicide, the evidence does not disclose that the defendant exhibited any manifestations of epilepsy, in seizures or in characteristic attacks. Physicians who examined him in the prison testified in his defense, and stated, as the result of their examinations, and in answer to hypothetical questions, which resumed all the facts in evidence concerning him, that it was their opinion that the defendant was suffering from epilepsy, and that when the homicide was committed he was irresponsible, because the victim of an epileptic mania. They considered, upon the history of the case, that he had, as a child, suffered from epileptic convulsions, and that the disease had changed in him to the masked form, or petit mal. On the part of the people, witnesses were sworn, who had observed his conduct during several years, before he was sent to the State Prison and while there, and they testified, all, that he impressed them as perfectly rational; and, some, that he was pleasant and reasonable, and a good workman. Physicians examined him at the request of the district attorney, and they testified, as the result of their examination, that they found no evidence of epilepsy or of epileptic furor; that, in their opinion, the defendant had had no epileptic seizure; and that he was capable of knowing the nature and quality of the act he had committed. One of them admitted the defendant's mental condition to be imperfect, and that he may have been an epileptic, but he said that he found no evidence of it at the time of the examination. Upon the defendant's physical examination, it was their opinion that he appeared to be controlling his muscles, and stated that, upon his attention being diverted, responses were exhibited which would be expected in a more or less normal condition of health. In addition to this medical expert evidence, the testimony of the two witnesses to the homicide, and of other persons, who saw him immediately before and after, as to his appearance and demeanor, tended to show an utter absence of any indications of epileptic disease or of a maniacal condition. Whether, upon a consideration of all of the evidence adduced, the defendant was laboring under a defect of reason at the time of his attack upon the deceased, as the subject of epileptic mania, was a question for the determination of the jury. It was a disputed question of fact. The defense of insanity is perfectly proper to be urged; but when a person, charged with the commission of a criminal act, and, to ordinary appearances, sane, defends upon the ground that he was legally irresponsible at the time, because yielding to an ungovernable impulse, as the expression of a form of epileptic disease, it is clear that to determine whether such was the fact must depend upon the inferences to be drawn from the evidence. Such a determination, under our laws, is for the jury to make, not for this court. We may assume that the defendant had, in his earlier years, been an epileptic, and that he had suffered from the disease in an aggravated form; but that the subsequent stage developed, which rendered him a dangerous and irresponsible being, is not at all certain. Indeed, aside from the opinion evidence of the physicians who examined him, that is not at all clear, by evidence of acts or of demeanor, and it seems to me that in such a situation the jurors were well warranted in not believing that the mind of the defendant was in an unsound state, to such a degree that reason and judgment were overwhelmed, and that he acted from an uncontrollable impulse and as an involuntary agent. The jurors had the witnesses before them, and, in listening to their testimony, could observe the manner in which they gave it. They could determine not only the credibility of the witnesses, but also the reliance to be placed upon the testimony, in the light of the opportunities and of the facts which formed the basis for the opinions expressed. The issue was for them to decide, and this court should not invade their province and interfere with their decision because of doubts entertained upon the evidence. People v. Rice, 159 N. Y. 400, 54 N. E. 48. If the evidence may justify the verdict, then the jurisdiction of this court to review the judgment of conviction must be confined to the examination of the record, that it may see whether the conviction was reached upon a fair trial, or whether such errors or mistakes were committed therein as to make it probable or possible that the defendant was prejudiced, and therefore, in the interests of justice, that he should have a new trial. People v. Hoch, 150 N. Y. 291, 44 N. E. 976. In this case it cannot reasonably be said that the...