Seibold v. State

• Decision Date: 16 July 1970
• Docket Number: 5 Div. 868
• Citation: 253 So.2d 302,287 Ala. 549
• Parties: Edward Albert SEIBOLD v. STATE of Alabama.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 302

253 So.2d 302

287 Ala. 549

Edward Albert SEIBOLD v. STATE of Alabama.

5 Div. 868.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

July 16, 1970.

After Remandment Dec. 17, 1970.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 7, 1971.

Walker, Hill & Gullage, Opelika, for appellant

MacDonald Gallion, Atty. Gen., and W. Mark Anderson, III, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

LIVINGSTON, Chief Justice.

On November 7, 1967, the grand jury of Lee County, Alabama, returned an indictment against the appellant, Edward Albert Seibold, hereinafter referred to as defendant, for murder in the first degree in the killing of Mary Lynn Sinclair.

The defendant was apprehended in the state of Florida and, following extradition proceedings, was returned to this state on December 17, 1967. Arraignment was originally scheduled for December 22, 1967, but on defendant's motion was continued until December 27, 1967. On that date, with his attorneys present, the defendant, prior to entering pleas to the merits, filed a 'Motion for Investigation of Sanity of Defendant,' pursuant to the provisions of Section 425, Title 15, Code 1940, Recompiled in 1958. This motion was accompanied by the affidavit and letter, respectively, of two reputable specialist practitioners in mental and nervous diseases. The court denied the motion on the same day, but granted leave to refile said motion after the defendant had been examined by a third reputable specialist practitioner in mental and nervous diseases.

The defendant then filed a plea in abatement which set forth that he was presently insane and incapable of competently assisting in his defense and praying the court to abate prosecution of the cause until such time as his sanity had been restored to him. The defendant further prayed the court to set the plea down for a determination by a jury under the provisions of Section 426, Title 15, Code 1940, Recompiled in 1958. The state's motion to strike the plea in abatement was granted.

The defendant entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.

On January 8, 1968, a 'Second Motion for Investigation of Sanity of Defendant' was filed. Said motion was accompanied by the affidavits of three reputable specialist practitioners in mental and nervous diseases. The court heard ore tenus the testimony Thereupon, the defendant filed a 'Motion for Inquiry into Mental Condition of Defendant Before Trial,' pursuant to the provisions of Section 426, supra. On January 12, 1968, said motion was denied by the court.

of Dr. Howard S. Weldon. The motion was denied.

Trial was commenced on January 15, 1968, and on January 20, 1968, the jury returned its verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree and imposed the death penalty. Judgment and sentence in accord with the verdict were pronounced by the trial court on the same day.

The appeal before this Court is under the automatic appeal statute applicable in cases where the death penalty is imposed. Act No. 249, General Acts of Alabama 1943, p. 217, Title 15, Sec. 382(1), et seq., Code 1940, 1955 Cum.Pocket Part, 1958 Recompiled Code of Alabama.

Upon proper investigation, the defendant was determined to be indigent within the language of Section 382(1) et seq., supra. The trial court appointed counsel who had represented the defendant in a retained capacity in the trial to represent him on this appeal.

The facts pertinent to the commission of the offense for which the defendant was tried and convicted are undisputed. We deem it unnecessary that such facts be set out in great detail in this opinion. The defense was based primarily, if not solely, on the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

On the night of September 6, 1967, Mrs. Juanita Sinclair, her four daughters, and a neighbor's daughter were in the Sinclair residence in Auburn, Alabama. The Sinclair children, ranging in age from nine to twenty, were Mary Lynn (the youngest), Elizabeth, Faye, and Cathey (the oldest). The neighbor's child, Mary Durant, age 9, was spending the night in the Sinclair residence as the guest of Mary Lynn.

Shortly before midnight, Mrs. Sinclair retired on the sofa in the living room, located on the intermediate and ground level of the tri-level structure. Cathey was sewing in the den, located on the lower level. The other Sinclair children and the Durant child were sleeping in bedrooms on the upper level. At approximately 11:50 P.M., an intruder, identified as the defendant, forcibly broke open the door leading from the outside into the living room, entered, and, from a shotgun which he carried, fired a shot which struck Mrs. Sinclair in the arm. The defendant then descended the stairs to the lower level. Cathey, upon hearing the initial commotion upstairs, concealed herself in a closet temporarily, then escaped the house via a window. The defendant, upon reaching the lower level, entered a bedroom adjacent to the den, where he fired a shot from the shotgun into a life-size doll which was sitting on a bed. He re-traced his steps to the intermediate level, and then continued up the steps to the upper level. As he ascended the stairs to the upper level, Mrs. Sinclair escaped from the house via the doorway through which the defendant had entered. In the driveway outside the house, Mrs. Sinclair met Cathey and together they proceeded to the residence of Dr. Thomas, a neighbor, located some 500 feet from the Sinclair residence.

On the upper level, Elizabeth and Faye had been sleeping in one bedroom; Mary Lynn and Mary Durant had been sleeping in another. As the defendant opened the door and entered the bedroom in which Elizabeth and Faye were situated, Faye slipped underneath the bed, where she remained undiscovered by the defendant. According to Faye's testimony, Elizabeth attempted to arise from the bed as the defendant neared, but fell back onto the bed when the defendant swung the shotgun which he carried. As Elizabeth again arose from the bed, the defendant demanded that she tell him the whereabouts of Mrs. Sinclair and Cathey. Elizabeth stated that she did not know. The two then paced back and forth in the hallway, continuing to argue, until Faye heard what she described as 'sort of a gurgling noise,' and then silence.

From her place of concealment underneath the bed, Faye heard the telephone ring several times and then stop. After a short period, the telephone again began to ring. Faye crawled from underneath the bed, descended the stairs to the intermediate level, where the telephone was located, and answered it. She told the caller, a neighbor who lived to the rear of the Sinclair residence, to get Dr. Thomas and the police.

Faye then returned to the upstairs, where, upon examining Elizabeth's body, she detected no pulse. She then proceeded into the bedroom in which Mary Lynn and Mary Durant had been sleeping. On the bed were the bodies of the girls, both of which were covered with blood. Upon examination, Faye detected no pulse in the body of either girl. She then descended the stairs to the intermediate level and exited the house via the doorway leading from the living room onto the carport, where she met Dr. Thomas and several policemen.

The testimony at trial tended to show that Cathey had met the defendant in 1966, at which time they attended the same class at Auburn University. They dated over a period of time and the defendant became well known in the Sinclair household. The relationship between the defendant and members of the Sinclair family seemed to deteriorate after Cathey left for Wellesley College in the fall of 1966, with only sporadic meetings between the defendant and Cathey and the defendant and other members of the Sinclair family. The testimony elicited relative to the defendant's relationship with the Sinclair family primarily pertained to the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. In view of the questions presented on this appeal, a detailed recitation of that relationship is not required.

In argument, the defendant strongly urges that the trial court committed error to reverse in its rulings on the various motions interposed pursuant to Section 425, supra, and Section 426 et seq., supra, respectively.

In support of the 'Motion for Investigation of Sanity of Defendant,' filed on December 27, 1967, the defendant filed the affidavit of Dr. Charles E. Herlihy, dated December 26, 1967, and a letter from Dr. Hugo Waldheim, Jr., dated December 11, 1967. The position taken in the motion was that the defendant was at the time in confinement under an indictment for murder in the first degree and that said defendant was then insane in the opinion of Dr. Herlihy, a specialist practitioner in mental and nervous diseases, and, based upon the letter from Dr. Waldheim, a specialist practitioner in mental and nervous diseases, there was reasonable ground to believe that the defendant was presently insane. It was set forth in the motion that Dr. Charles H. Smith, also a specialist practitioner in mental and nervous diseases, would soon examine the defendant and submit a written report thereof to the court. Said motion prayed that a hearing on the motion be continued until such time as the written report of Dr. Smith was made available to the court and that upon hearing of said motion an order be made ordering the Sheriff of Lee County to deliver the defendant to the Superintendent of the Alabama State Hospitals for the purpose of determining the mental condition of the defendant and making a written report thereof to the court, pursuant to the provisions of Section 425, supra.

Section 425 of Title 15, supra, provides, in pertinent part, as follows:

' § 425. Investigation of sanity of person charged with capital offense.--Whenever it shall be made known to the presiding judge of a court by which an indictment has been returned against a defendant for a capital offense, by the written report of not less than three reputable specialist practitioners in mental and nervous diseases, appointed by the judge, or by...