Commonwealth v. Knowlton

Decision Date28 December 1928
PartiesCOMMONWEALTH v. KNOWLTON.
CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Appeal from Superior Criminal Court, Middlessex County.

Frederick Hinman Knowlton was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and he appeals and files an assignment of errors. Judgment rendered on the verdict.G. Alpert and M. C. Kelleher, both of Boston and J. P. Driscoll, of Framingham, for appellant.

R. T. Bushnell, Dist. Atty., and F. A. Crafts, Asst. Dist. Atty., both of Boston, for the Commonwealth.

CROSBY, J.

The prisoner was convicted of the murder, in the first degree, of Marguerite Isabelle Stewart, and unmarried woman. In response to a motion for a bill of particulars filed by the prisoner and allowed by the judge, the district attorney specified that the crime was committed between the hours of 12 o'clock noon and 8 p. m., on March 30, 1928, and averred that the commonwealth was unable to specify the exact spot where the crime was committed, or to specify or describe the instrument used in the commission of the crime beyond stating that it was an instrument of sufficient weight and substance to break the skull of the murdered woman.

The verdict must be taken to mean that the jury determined conclusively that the prisoner in fact killed the deceased. The defense does not raise any question to the contrary. In his brief it is stated: ‘With murder by deliberate premeditation, and with murder in the commission or attempted commission of a crime punishable with death or imprisonment for life, we are not here concerned. The only question is whether the evidence warranted a conviction on the ground of extreme atrocity and cruelty.’ The question we have to decide is whether upon the evidence the trial judge was warranted in submitting to the jury the issue whether the murder was committed with extreme atrocity or cruelty. G. L. c. 265, § 1, provides: ‘Murder committed with deliberately premediated malice aforethough, or with extreme atrocity or cruelty, or in the commission or attempted commission of a crime punishable with death or imprisonment for life, is murder in the first degree. Murder which does not appear to be in the first degree is murder in the second degree.’

There was evidence that the body of the deceased was found by the side of the highway, in Concord, between 7:30 and 8 o'clock on Friday evening, March 30, 1928; that the body was lying on its left side with the right arm under the head; the knees bent, and the feet towards the road; that the head was diagonally away from the road; that the body was fully dressed with the exception of a hat, which was never found; that the coat was forward on the body and the legs were exposed but were covered with shoes and stockings; that the coat was well up over the head and dress. There was also evidence tending to show that police officers arrived at the place where the body was found at about 7:50 o'clock the same evening and that the body was then slightly warm; that the deceased's corsets were undone and down around her buttocks and thighs. The left leg of her bloomers was off. There was evidence that there was a ‘drizzly’ rain that night but that her stockings were not very wet.

Dr. Walcott, the medical examiner, testified in part as follows: ‘The clothing was disarranged when I viewed the body. The dress was pulled up. The bloomers were partly off, the left leg being out of the left leg of the bloomer. The bloomer was hanging on the right leg. The corsets were unfastened and down to the thighs and knees. The coat was wet with water, and blood stains, and splashed with brain substance. * * * The hair was wet with water * * * and blood, matted with blood. There was a large opening on the right side of the skull from which brain matter was exuding, and that side of the skull was practically empty. On undressing the body there were very few marks, no marks of violence except the head. There was a small red discoloration the level of the cricoid cartilage, and made evidently by a scarf which was wound around the neck, and pulled snugly about the throat. * * * About the left wrist there was a reddish discoloration, where the band of the wrist watch had been. * * * About the middle third of the right forearm was a reddish discoloration. Just above the left knee there was a yellowish-brown discoloration, small, irregular in shape; and on the right kneecap there was a yellowish-brown discoloration. * * * Under the right eye, extending from a point at the root of the nose, outward, toward the outward angle of the eye, was an area of ecchymosis, or black and blue discoloration. As I remember it, there were no other marks.’

Dr. Magrath, a medical examiner for Suffolk county, testified substantially to the same effect in describing the marks and wounds upon the body of the deceased, and gave it as his opinion that death was caused by the blow on the head; that the heart could not have continued to beat for many minutes after such a blow.

One Rand, a witness called by the commonwealth, testified that late Friday afternoon, March 30, 1928, he saw a man on Ash street, in Weston, in a Chrysler automobile similar to that owned by the defendant; that he later identified this man as the defendants, and that in the car with the man he had seen a woman who was crying.

[2] 1. The first assignment of error relates to the admission in evidence of Exhibits 3 and 4, which were photographs of the face and head of the deceased, and which showed the size and location of a wound upon the right side of the head. The ground of the objection to this evidence was that the gruesomeness of the photographs could have no legitimate bearing upon any issue, and that their admission would tend to prejudice the jury against the defendant. It is plain that the photographs were competent upon the issue whether the murder was committed with extreme atrocity or cruelty as they show the nature and extent of the wound which caused death, and it might have been found that the force exercised to accomplish such a result indicated extreme cruelty. As there was no question respecting the identification of the photographs this exception must be overruled. Commonwealth v. Robertson, 162 Mass. 90, 38 N. E. 25;Commonwealth v. Chance, 174 Mass. 245, 247, 54 N. E. 551,75 Am. St. Rep. 306;Commonwealth v. Retkovitz, 222 Mass. 245, 248, 249, 110 N. E. 293;McGrath v. Fash, 244 Mass. 327, 139 N. E. 303.

[4] 2. The second assignment of error relates to the admission of the following question asked the defendant in cross-examination. ‘When you read in the newspaper that this girl with whom you had been on Thursday night, had been brutally murdered, did you then suspect the brother...

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    ...213, 63 S.Ct. 1450, 87 L.Ed. 1848 (1943); Commonwealth v. Osman, 284 Mass. 421, 423, 188 N.E. 226 (1933); Commonwealth v. Knowlton, 265 Mass. 382, 385-386, 163 N.E. 251 (1928). The defendant contends that, even if relevant to the issue of atrocity or cruelty, these photographs were unnecess......
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