People v. Green

• Decision Date: 14 March 1911
• Citation: 201 N.Y. 172,94 N.E. 658
• Parties: PEOPLE v. GREEN.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

201 N.Y. 172

94 N.E. 658

PEOPLE

v.GREEN.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 14, 1911.

Appeal from Albany County Court.

Charles L. Green was convicted of murder, and he appeals from the judgment and from an order denying a new trial. Affirmed.

John H. Dugan, for appellant.

Harold D. Alexander, for respondent.

WILLARD BARTLETT, J.

The defendant appeals from a judgment of the County Court of Albany County upon a conviction of murder in the first degree, and also from an order denying a motion for a new trial. His notice of appeal assumes also to bring before us several other orders of an interlocutory character; but, as these do not constitute a part of the judgment roll as prescribed by section 485 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, they do not appear to be reviewable under section 517, which provides what intermediate orders or proceedings may be reviewed. However, we have considered every point argued before us in behalf of the appellant, irrespective of any technical objection which may exist as to the manner in which it is brought up.

The defendant shot and killed his daughter, Eva Green, a girl about 14 years of age, in the township of New Scotland, in Albany county, on the 27th day of July, 1910. The homicide was committed with a rifle, on premises known as the Van Dyke farm, at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, in the presence of the mother of the victim, who was also shot by the defendant, but not fatally; a little brother five or six years old; two uncles of Mrs. Green, who were working on the farm at the time; and a lad of thirteen, who was the son of one of these uncles. The defendant was indicted for murder in the first degree on October 7, 1910, and then pleaded not guilty. Subsequently he added to this plea a specification that he was insane at the time when the offense was committed.

Immediately after the plea of not guilty was interposed, the district attorney, upon notice to counsel for the defendant, applied to the Supreme Court at Trial Term for an order removing the indictment to the County Court of Albany County, which order was granted over the objection of the defendant's counsel that the statute conferring jurisdiction to try capital cases upon the County Court was an ex post facto law as applied to this homicide, because the homicide was committed on July 27, 1910, and the statute did not go into effect until the 1st of September in that year. On October 17, 1910, the defendant moved in the County Court for an order sending the indictment back to the Supreme Court to enable him to move at a Special Term thereof to change the place of trial on the ground that a fair and impartial trial could not be had in Albany county. This motion was denied, as was also another motion, three days later, to retransfer the case to the Supreme Court on account of the objection to the jurisdiction of the County Court already mentioned. The indictment was then brought to trial in the County Court of Albany County at a term beginning on November 1, 1910, and resulted in the conviction of the defendant of the crime of murder in the first degree.

As happens in almost all cases of this character, it is argued that the evidence did not warrant the jury in finding the existence of the premeditation and deliberation necessary to constitute the highest degree of felonious homicide. This contention compels us invariably to consider the facts with the utmost care. It will suffice, however, to make as concise a statement as possible of the circumstances of the tragedy.

The defendant, a man about 40 years of age, lived with his family on a small farm in the southern part of Albany county, where he appears to have been occupied partly in farming and to a considerable extent in hunting. One of the witnesses described him as ‘a man of the woods.’ His family consisted of his wife, Emma Green; his daughter, Eva Green, the girl whom he killed; and the little boy who has been mentioned. There had been marital differences in the household for some time, the character of which the wife refused to disclose when testifying as a witness in her husband's behalf, saying, ‘I don't want to tell anything that would hurt my husband’-and this notwithstanding that he had shot her first, inflicting a terrible wound in the head, at the time he killed the daughter. The fact that the daughter was an element in the controversy between the husband and wife is indicated by his statement to one of Mrs. Green's uncles, not long before the shooting, to the effect that ‘the girl had always made trouble ever since she had been with them,’ apparently referring to what had occurred since her return from a sojourn in some other family. On the morning of the homicide the differences between Green and Mrs. Green had evidently grown so intense that the wife feared harm at his hands. He was going to cut wood, and asked her to go with him and take the horse and cow to pasture. She went half way, when something in his demeanor or conversation, or both, caused her to turn back abruptly and leave him. ‘I don't think we were quite half way to the pasture,’ she says, ‘when he stopped and asked me what I had been talking about down to his sister's. I didn't say anything. I turned around and went back home.’ She then took her children and went to the house of a neighbor named Levi Nickerson. Subsequently she visited another neighbor by the name of l'Amoureux, but we know little about her movements until afternoon except that she and her children remained away from home. At about 3 o'clock p. m. they came to a wagon house on the Van Dyke farm, where Mrs. Green's uncle, William J. Vadney, was at work. After about 15 minutes' conversation with this uncle, she screamed, ‘There comes Charlie!’ and the defendant was seen approaching on the road. At this time he had nothing in his hands, and was apparently unarmed. He made no reply to his wife's scream, but, as the uncle testifies, walked directly toward his wife and children while they were screaming. Mr. William J. Vadney stepped between them, and asked what the trouble was. The defendant answered, ‘I will tell you,’ and suggested that they go out of the wagon house, but leave the children there. Mrs. Green hesitated, but her uncle told her to come along. They sat down behind an old railing near the dwelling house, and Green said to Mr. Vadney that his wife had been leaving home and had been with other men. Mrs. Green denied the charge. Green asked Mr. Vadney, ‘What would you do?’ Mr. Vadney responded that he knew nothing about their troubles, and would advise them to return home, as he could see no reason why they could not get along, but, if they could not get along together, he would advise them to separate. Mrs. Green then said she could take care of herself, but wanted the boy. ‘Green said he wanted the boy, and the boy at that moment screamed and grabbed hold of his mother.’ Thereupon they returned to the wagon house, where Green asked his wife if she intended to go back with him. ‘She said she was afraid and her daughter Eva would not go at that time.’ The defendant then asked Mrs. Green why she went over to l'Amoureux's that morning. The uncle here testifies: ‘She told me she was afraid of him; that he had asked her to accompany him over in the woods several days before that, and she refused to go. That was her reason for leaving home. Green stood there for a while and he said the girl had always made trouble ever since she had been with them.’ Eva said: ‘I don't know how I could have made any trouble.’ There was some further conversation in which the defendant said the only thing he had ever done was to hit Eva with a whip and the whip struck his wife. Finally Green said to his wife: ‘Do you intend to go home with me? This is the last time I ask you.’ He went out of the door of the wagon house, and Mrs. Green and the children left at about the same time to go up into the pasture where Mrs. Green's other uncle, Mr. Howard W. Vadney, was at work. They had been with Mr. Howard W. Vadney only two or three minutes, when the defendant reappeared on the scene carrying a rifle. As he approached the group within 30 or 40 feet Mrs. Green exclaimed, ‘There comes-there is Charlie. He is going to shoot me.’ Her uncle Howard endeavored to allay her fears, and told Green he wanted to talk to him. Green said he had talked all he was going to, and told his wife to go home. ‘I want you to go home; go on,’ he exclaimed to his wife and children, at the same time pointing his rifle around over their heads. They screamed and started toward the wagon house, Mrs. Green calling out the name of her uncle William as they approached the building. Mr. William J. Vadney heard her voice, came out of the wagon house, exclaimed to Green, ‘Wait a minute!’ when the defendant raised his rifle and shot first his wife and then his daughter. Only the second shot proved fatal.

After the shooting the defendant manifested some symptoms of contrition. He partly lifted his wounded wife and said, ‘Why did I do it?’ or ‘What made me do it?’ also, ‘Why did you let me do it; why didn't you stop me?’ When asked, however, to harness the horse and get a doctor, he said he could not do that. ‘The girl is dead and Emma is alive. Do what you can for her.’ Then he turned around and walked away.

On the following day, when under arrest, Green was found to be suffering from a gunshot wound in the head which he said he had inflicted upon himself with a revolver. He told a deputy sheriff that he had done the shooting on the day before with a 30-30 Savage rifle, which was in a woodshed near the Vanderbilt residence half a mile from his farm. He also said that he had shot himself with a Colt's revolver which would be found near a swamp in the vicinity. The rifle and a pasteboard box of 30-30 cartridges were found in the place indicated by the defendant. Upon the box the words ‘Good-bye all’ appeared in handwriting, but in whose handwriting was not...