Carrington v. State

• Decision Date: 29 May 1967
• Docket Number: No. 210,210
• Citation: 1 Md.App. 353,230 A.2d 112
• Parties: Mary Lee CARRINGTON v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 353

1 Md.App. 353

230 A.2d 112

Mary Lee CARRINGTON v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 210.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

May 29, 1967.

Benjamin L. Brown, Baltimore, for appellant.

Fred Oken, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore (Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Fred Oken, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Baltimore City, Charles E. Moylan, Jr., State's Atty. for Baltimore City, James F. Garrity, Asst. State's Atty. for Baltimore City, on the brief), for appellee.

Before ANDERSON, MORTON, ORTH and THOMPSON, JJ., and WILLIAM J. O'DONNELL, Special Judge.

PER CURIAM.

On May 17, 1966, appellant was convicted of manslaughter in the Criminal Court of Baltimore before Judge James A Perrott, presiding without a jury. She was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not more than 6 years.

There are two questions presented on this appeal:

1) Did the trial court err in admitting in evidence the oral statements of the appellant?

2) Did the trial court err in finding that the homicide was neither accidental nor in self defense?

On January 19, 1966 Sergeant Gilbert Derrenberger of the Baltimore City Police Department responded to a call at 710 Druid Hill Avenue. He observed 'a couple large spots of blood outside the front door', which was ajar. He saw appellant in the front room. He asked appellant what happened and she replied, 'Come on in * * * I got tired of him beating on me, pushing on me.' At this point at the trial the issue of voluntariness was explored. The police officer testified that neither he nor anyone in his presence made any promises to her nor used any force or violence on her and that her statements were free and voluntary. On cross examination he said appellant appeared to be intoxicated, her speech was slurred and she smelled 'in my estimation of wine.' He did not have the opportunity to tell her that anything she said would be used against her because she 'blurted out her story.' The appellant proffered no testimony on the question of voluntariness and the statement was admitted in evidence. Appellant told the officer she was tired of being beat on and that the deceased had kicked her. She waited until he went upstairs where he laid on the bed and went to sleep. She got a knife from the kitchen, went upstairs and stabbed him but did not know on what part of the body. The autopsy report was admitted in evidence by stipulation. The opinion of the medical examiner was that the deceased died 'as a result of a massive hemorrhage following the cutting of a large artery of the left leg as part of a stab wound of that leg.' The wound was located on the anterolateral aspect of the left lower leg, at approximately the junction of the superior and middle thirds of that leg and located specifically at a point inferior to the inferior-most portion of the left patella. The alcohol in his blood was .19%. The officer went upstairs and found the deceased across the bed with his feet on the floor in a large pool of blood. The appellant voluntarily went to the kitchen, got a knife from a shelf in a cabinet and gave it to the officer. She said she had washed the knife, dried it and replaced it in the cabinet after the stabbing. The officer further testified that he did not attempt to take a written statement from her when she was taken to the police station because of her condition. The next morning he advised her of her right to counsel and on his further advise she said she would wait for an attorney and interrogation was not pursued. At the conclusion of the State's case the court granted a motion for judgment of acquittal of murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree and denied a motion as to manslaughter.

The appellant testified that she had been living with the deceased for eight years. She admitted stabbing him. There had been an argument over money and the deceased hit her. She said, 'I saw him going to come back, hit me in the face. I grabbed the knife. I thought I hit him on the arm. He walked away from me. The officer came so quick * * *.' (The police apparently were called by the landlady who saw the deceased on the bed. The landlady did not testify.) Appellant further testified that she got a clean sheet from a trunk and gave it to the officer at his request. She said that they had been drinking in the early part of the afternoon but she was not drunk and was not 'high,' that they 'didn't have but a fifth between four people. When he went across the street to pay the man this money, he gave him half of it.' On cross examination in answer to questions going to her credibility, she admitted to three previous convictions of assault, one for cutting the deceased with a razor, the others for stabbing two other men.

We find no error in the admitting in evidence of the oral statements. The test by which the court is to measure the admissibility of the statement is whether the statement was made by the appellant freely and voluntarily and at a time when she knew and understood what she was saying. Koprivich v. State, 1 Md.App. 147, 228 A.2d 476 (1967); Cooper v. State, 1 Md.App. 190, 228 A.2d 840 (1967) and cases cited. There is no contention that the statement was the product of force or threats or the result of any promises or inducements whereby the appellant may have been led to believe that there might be a partial or total abandonment of prosecution. There is no allegation of denial of counsel after request so Escobedo v. State of Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (1963) does not apply. Nor is she within the ambit of Miranda v. State fo Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 10 A.L.R.3d 974 as Miranda is available...