Commonwealth v. Dellechiaie

• Decision Date: 03 February 1949
• Citation: 323 Mass. 615,84 N.E.2d 7
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. VINCENT DELLE CHIAIE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

323 Mass. 615

84 N.E.2d 7

COMMONWEALTH v. VINCENT DELLE CHIAIE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

February 3, 1949

October 4, 1948.

Present: QUA, C.

J., LUMMUS, DOLAN WILKINS, & WILLIAMS, JJ.

Homicide. Intoxication.

Jury and Jurors. Practice, Criminal, New trial.

At the trial of an indictment for murder of a girl seven years of age, where there was evidence of a killing during an attempt at rape and evidence describing the defendant as in various degrees of intoxication, the judge correctly charged the jury in substance as follows: "Voluntary intoxication is never an excuse or a palliation for crime. . . . One may be perfectly unconscious of what he is doing and yet be responsible for his conduct during drunkenness. . . . Drunkenness is no excuse for killing another while engaged in the act of attempting to rape her. . . . No matter how drunk one may be and no matter what the intention may be, the law does not permit drunkenness under such circumstances to be an excuse for the crime."

The mere fact, that after a trial of an indictment and a verdict of guilty the defendant discovered that the foreman of the jury was disqualified for jury service because of his residence in another State, did not as a matter of law require the allowance of a motion for a new trial based on that ground disposition of the motion was within the discretion of the trial judge.

INDICTMENT, found and returned on September 10, 1947. The case was tried before Pinanski, J.

C. J. Mahoney, for the defendant.

J. J. Ryan, Jr. Assistant District Attorney, (A.

P. Pettoruto, Assistant District Attorney, with him,) for the Commonwealth.

WILLIAMS, J. On November 20, 1947, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree on an indictment charging the defendant with the murder of Louise Kurpiel at Lawrence on September 7, 1947. After the imposition of sentence, the defendant appealed to this court, his appeal being accompanied by an assignment of errors, a summary of the record, and a transcript of the evidence, as required by G L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 278, Sections 33A-33G, as amended by St. 1939, c. 341. There was little dispute as to the facts.

The Commonwealth presented evidence that the dead body of Louise Kurpiel, a child seven years old, was discovered near the municipal parking area in Lawrence in the early morning of Monday, September 8, 1947. The body was on its back, nude from the armpits down. The "panties" of the child were nearby. The left side of the face and head was "bashed in." Near the body was a rock with blood and hair on it. There were abrasions on the inner thighs between the vulva and the rectum, but no injury to the genitalia. The cause of death was "multiple crushed and lacerated wounds of the left side of the face, comminuted fractures of the bones of the left face, and . . . extensive injury and laceration of the brain." The defendant was seen walking with the child, holding her by the hand, near the municipal parking area on the preceding Sunday evening shortly after seven-thirty o'clock. About 8:25 P.M. on the same evening he was seen, covered with blood, near the place where the body was found. Later that evening he went to his home, left his bloodstained clothes in a closet and, wearing different clothes, "hitchhiked" to Franklin, New Hampshire. On Tuesday he was arrested. In an oral confession made to the district attorney, which was reduced to writing, and read and signed by him, he stated that he took the child to the parking area, attempted to have intercourse with her, and when she resisted and started to scream, he picked up a rock and hit her on the head several times.

In his testimony the defendant, a man of twenty-one, made no denial of the fact of being in the company of the child but stated that his mind was a blank as to what had occurred; that he had been to a wedding that Sunday afternoon; that he consumed about nine beers and two glasses of wine; that he remembered meeting a little girl, and thereafter remembered nothing. Witnesses who saw the defendant at the wedding testified variously that he was "very drunk," "feeling pretty good," and "almost drunk."

Of the fifteen assignments of error filed by the defendant only those numbered 13 and 15 have been argued.

Assignment 13 relates to the charge of the judge in reference to the effect of drunkenness on the legal responsibility of the defendant for his acts. The judge instructed the jury: "Voluntary intoxication is never an excuse or a palliation for crime. It would be subversive of all law and morality if the commission of one vice, may we call it a vice like drunkenness, or crime as it is under our statute here, should be allowed to excuse another crime. One may be perfectly unconscious of what he is doing and yet be responsible for his conduct during drunkenness. . . . Drunkenness is no excuse for killing another while engaged in the act of attempting to rape her. Drunkenness is no excuse for attempting to rape a girl and killing her in the act of that attempt. No matter how drunk one may be and no matter what the...