Carpenter v. United States

• Decision Date: 12 March 1959
• Docket Number: No. 7686.,7686.
• Citation: 264 F.2d 565
• Parties: Russell Wayne CARPENTER, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

264 F.2d 565 (1959)

Russell Wayne CARPENTER, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 7686.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued January 13, 1959.

Decided March 12, 1959.

Albert J. Ahern, Jr., and James J. Laughlin, Washington, D. C., for appellant.

A. Andrew Giangreco, Asst. U. S. Atty., Alexandria, Va. (L. S. Parsons, Jr., U. S. Atty., Norfolk, Va., on the brief), for appellee.

Before SOBELOFF, Chief Judge, and SOPER and HAYNSWORTH, Circuit Judges.

HAYNSWORTH, Circuit Judge.

The defendant was convicted upon all counts of indictments charging him with the interstate transportation of (1) two persons, known to have been kidnapped, from the District of Columbia to Virginia, (2) one person, known to have been kidnapped, from Virginia to South Carolina, (3) an automobile, known to have been stolen, from the District of Columbia to Virgina, and (4) another automobile, known to have been stolen, from Virginia to South Carolina. The defendant did not deny his participation in the offenses charged, but claimed he was temporarily in such a psychotic condition, because of fear of his companion in crime, that he was not responsible for his conduct.

On the evening after Christmas in 1957, Carpenter, a young man of 22 years, with an older man, Henry Clay Overton, who had befriended him, set out for an evening of indulgence in the pleasures of Washington's taverns. Late in the evening, they became involved in an altercation in the Jo-Dell Tavern. They left, presumably to arm themselves, and returned. Exactly what then happened does not clearly appear in this record, but it does appear that several people were killed, others wounded, and there was testimony that later in the night, they boasted of having killed three people and that Carpenter said it was the first time he had killed anyone but that "it didn't bother him because all it made was some little red spots on the man's shirt."

The two left the area of the tavern in Overton's automobile, Carpenter doing the driving. A little later they came upon a young couple, Doris Mattingly and Larry Monteith, sitting in Monteith's automobile in front of the Mattingly home in the District of Columbia. Carpenter, with a 45-caliber automatic pistol in his hand, commandeered the Monteith car and ordered Monteith into the rear seat. Overton then came to the Monteith vehicle, armed with a sawed-off shotgun and carrying a box of ammunition. Carpenter took the driver's seat in Monteith's Chevrolet, while Overton entered the car from the other side, Miss Mattingly being between them. Carpenter drove the car into Virginia.

Some miles south of Richmond, while Overton slept, Carpenter stopped the car and released Miss Mattingly, requesting her to refrain from calling the police for at least an hour and a half. A little later, Overton awoke, and he and Carpenter became concerned that law enforcement officials might be watching for the Monteith car. To be certain Monteith could not identify the next automobile they took, they locked him in the trunk of his automobile.

Arsonia Gooch Allman arose early on the morning of December 27, 1955, and at 5:00 o'clock left her home in Richmond for a trip south in her new Buick. She had passed Petersburg and was proceeding toward South Hill, Virginia, when she was overtaken by the Monteith automobile. Overton shouted to her and brandished his sawed-off shotgun as Carpenter drove in front of her and forced her to a stop. Overton got out, ordered her to move over and seized control of her car, while Carpenter parked the Monteith automobile in a side road, its owner still locked in the trunk.

Overton and Carpenter continued to drive south with their new prisoner, until they reached a wooded area in South Carolina. There Carpenter took their prisoner into the woods and compelled her to remove most of her clothing, which he then used to bind her hands and feet. There he left her, returned to the automobile, and he and Overton resumed their journey.

After their arrival in Miami, they approached what they believed to be a "roadblock." Alarmed, they drove around a block, stopped and turned off their headlights. Seeing a vehicle coming their way, they became fearful it contained policemen. They both fled. Overton later returned to the automobile and headed north again. Traveling at very high speed in an effort to escape close pursuit in Georgia, he collided with another vehicle, killing the driver of the other car and himself. Meanwhile, Carpenter made his way to Miami Beach where he threw away the pistol he had used. On the evening of December 30th, Carpenter was arrested in West Palm Beach, and the escapade was at an end.

At the trial, the defense undertook to cast Carpenter in the role of another victim of Overton's dominance enforced at gun point. Emphasis was placed upon Overton's braggadocio about his slayings and his description of himself as a "real Jesse James." Monteith said that Overton was obviously drunk, and Carpenter, estimating that Overton had consumed one and a half fifths of a gallon of whiskey during the night of December 26-27, agreed that Overton was drunk, but insisted that, when they left the Jo-Dell Tavern, Overton was not so drunk as crazy. It was proved that Overton was a diabetic, and expert opinion was elicited that some diabetics in shock are belligerent. Carpenter testified that he, as well as the kidnap victims, was under the constant threat of Overton's loaded shotgun, that the pistol previously had been his, but he recently had sold it to Overton and was permitted by Overton to possess it from time to time during their adventure, and that everything that he did was done in fear of Overton in order to preserve his own life and that of the kidnap victims, who would have been shot, according to Carpenter's statement of Overton's threats to him, if Carpenter escaped. He testified that he did not recognize various occurrences as affording opportunity to escape safely from Overton without risk of harm to any kidnap victim, until their separation in Miami, and that he availed himself of that opportunity.¹

This version of events, the defense sought to support with the testimony of two psychiatrists who expressed the opinion that Carpenter, on December 27, was temporarily insane out of excessive fear of Overton and that his mental condition then was such that he could not have distinguished right from wrong.

On direct examination, Carpenter testified fully about all relevant events, except those occurring inside the portals of the Jo-Dell Tavern. On cross-examination the prosecutor sought to question him about the occurrences inside the tavern, and the defense objected that such inquiry was improper and beyond the scope of the direct examination. When the questions were ruled proper cross-examination, Carpenter, on advice of his counsel, refused to answer them upon the ground that he was then under indictment in the District of Columbia for homicides committed in the tavern and that his answers to the questions would tend to incriminate him. Carpenter persisted in his refusal to answer after the Court ordered him to answer the questions, for which, in the absence of the jury, he was cited for contempt. The Court instructed the jury that consideration might be given, along with all other facts and circumstances, to Carpenter's refusal to answer the questions on cross-examination.

In objecting to his cross-examination, the defendant mistakenly relies upon such cases as United States v. Corrigan, 2 Cir., 168 F.2d 641, and United States v. Provoo, 2 Cir., 215 F.2d 531, his assumption being that any evidence of any occurrence in the Jo-Dell Tavern would not have been admissible unless made so because of some fragmentary disclosure out of the mouth of the defendant himself.² Carpenter's only defense was his claim of mental incapacity arising out of fear of Overton, a condition for which their prior, rather intimate, relationship held no presage, but which was full blown when they made their way out of the tavern. Surely it was relevant and material to inquire of him how he thus came to be reduced to this lowly and unexpected condition. If it appeared, as the prosecutor's questions suggested, that in the tavern Carpenter was not the cringing victim of Overton's threats but the cold killer returned to avenge with gunfire Overton's bloody nose, Carpenter's defense would be demolished. Claiming, despite substantial extrinsic evidence to the contrary, that he was put in such sudden terror by his old friend, gone abruptly berserk, that he was temporarily insane, it is hardly persuasive for Carpenter to contend that it is quite irrelevant how this turn of events came about. When a condition of temporary insanity is claimed to have existed, its cause and the events which created it seem obviously material to the inquiry into the existence of the claimed disability.

We do not understand, however, that Carpenter seriously questions the relevance of the events in the tavern to his defense. Rather, he contends that the scope of cross-examination was strictly limited to those objective events of which he told on his direct examination, at least that such limitations should be imposed in the light of his privilege against self-incrimination.

Firmly rooted in our judicial history is the principle that a defendant in a criminal case, who cannot be compelled to testify and whose failure to do so may not be made the subject of adverse comment, cannot prescribe and impose limitations upon his waiver of his privilege against self-incrimination when he voluntarily takes the witness stand. When he chooses to testify freely to those events and circumstances which tend to support his defense, neither the Constitution nor any consideration of justice requires that he be permitted selectively to suppress other relevant facts which may be incriminating or inconsistent with his defense. "(H)e has no right to set forth...