Corens v. State

• Decision Date: 09 January 1946
• Docket Number: 60.
• Citation: 45 A.2d 340,185 Md. 561
• Parties: CORENS v. STATE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

45 A.2d 340

185 Md. 561

CORENS v. STATE.

No. 60.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 9, 1946

Appeal from Circuit Court, Anne Arundel County; James Clark, Judge.

Henry Hubert Corens was convicted of murder in the second degree and he appeals.

Judgment affirmed.

George B. Woelfel, of Annapolis, and Harold C. Smith, of Rockville for appellant.

William Curran, Atty. Gen., and Joseph B. Simpson, Jr., State's Atty., of Rockville (Marvin I. Anderson, State's Atty of Annapolis, and J. Edgar Harvey, Asst. Atty. Gen., on the brief), for appellee.

Before MARBURY, C.J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, GRASON, HENDERSON, and MARKELL, JJ.

DELAPLAINE Judge.

Henry Hubert Corens, an automobile painter and mechanic of Bethesda, 44 years old, was indicted by the Grand Jury of Montgomery County for the murder of his wife, Pearl W. Corens, on February 12, 1945. The case was removed to the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, where he was tried and found guilty of murder in the second degree. On May 28 he was sentenced by the court to confinement in the Maryland Penitentiary for the period of 18 years. From the judgment he entered an appeal to this court.

When the case came on for trial, the State's Attorney requested the court to ask each prospective juror on his voir dire whether he would be willing to convict on circumstantial evidence in a case where the penalty might be death, inasmuch as the State expected to prove the commission of the crime by circumstantial evidence. Over defendant's objection the court asked each juror the following question: 'Have you any such conscientious scruple or opinions as would prevent or preclude you from rendering a verdict of guilty in a case where the penalty prescribed by law may be death upon what is commonly called circumstantial evidence?' It is contended that the question had a prejudicial effect by leading the jurors to believe that the judge had already decided that defendant was guilty and that circumstantial evidence was guilty and that convict. In Maryland there is no statute or precise rule prescribing the questions which should be asked a prospective juror on his voir dire in order to determine his qualification, but the subject is left largely to the sound discretion of the court in each particular case. In the exercise of that discretion, the trial judge should adapt the questions to the needs of each case in the effort to secure an impartial jury. In Whittemore v. State, 151 Md. 309, 314, 134 A. 322, Chief Judge Bond stated the broad rule that any circumstances which may reasonably be regarded as rendering a person unfitted for jury service may be made the subject of questions and a challenge for cause. In other words, an examination of a prospective juror on his voir dire is proper as long as it is conducted strictly within the right to discover the state of mind of the juror in respect to the matter in hand or any collateral matter reasonably liable to unduly influence him. It is unquestioned, for instance, that a person who has conscientious scruples against capital punishment cannot properly examine the evidence in a prosecution for a crime for which capital punishment may be imposed, because he does not stand impartial between the prisoner and the State. If it develops on the voir dire examination of a prospective juror that he has such conscientious scruples, the State may challenge him for cause. State v. Ward, 39 Vt. 225, 231; Commonwealth v. Bentley, 287 Pa. 539, 135 A. 310; People v. Ah Chung, 54 Cal. 398. We likewise hold that the State has the right to challenge a juror in a capital case on the ground that he would not be willing to convict on circumstantial evidence. Cluverius v. Commonwealth, 81 Va. 787; Grant v. State, 67 Tex.Cr.R. 155, 148 S.W. 760, 42 L.R.A.,N.S., 428; Hochheimer, Criminal Law, 2d Ed., sec. 134; 31 Am.Jur., Jury, sec. 159. We are unable to agree with the contention that, merely because the prospective jurors were asked on voir dire examination to state their views on circumstantial evidence and capital punishment, they were thereby induced to believe that the judge was convinced before the trial began that the accused was guilty.

Defendant testified that he went to bed in his home on Gladwyne Drive about 9.30 o'clock on Monday night, February 12, and was awakened shortly before midnight by the radio; that he asked his wife to turn the radio down and then went back to bed; that a few minutes later she came into his room and angrily demanded whiskey, and hopped on him and scratched his face. 'By that time,' he said, 'I sat up in bed and I slapped at her. She must have picked up something, * * * it must have been the heel of a shoe. She struck me here (indicating the forehead) and it knocked me out.' According to his story, he regained consciousness within a few minutes and searched the house but she had disappeared. In the morning his right eye was bloodshot, his forehead swollen, his face scratched, and his lip cut. As the day was rainy and bad for painting, he stayed at home until noon; then went to a restaurant for lunch; returned home about 1.30; remained there until about 4.30; went to a moving picture theater; drank several glasses of beer about 8.30; went home again and retired about 9.30. On Wednesday, February 14, he went back to work; but in the afternoon Mrs. Corens' brother, Ralph Walker, and his wife called to see him, and requested him to accompany them to the police station to report the disappearance. Detective John Leahy went to the home and examined the premises, and Corens promised to co-operate with him. During the following two weeks Corens lived alone.

On February 27 a woman's head was found by a fisherman on the Seneca Road in Fairfax County, Virginia, about a half mile south of the Potomac. After Officer Richard F. Utz, of Fairfax County, was given permission by the coroner to take the head to the police in Montgomery County, it was identified by three dentists as the head of Mrs. Corens. An examination disclosed that the head had been severed from the body by a saw. That night Corens was called to the police station, where he was informed that his wife's head had been found. He retorted: 'You would have to show it to me. I won't believe it.' Detective Leahy made a midnight trip to the Corens home to search the basement again. Under the work bench he found a hack saw. He took this to Dr. Briggs J. White, a chemist of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who found upon it stains of human blood. Defendant was questioned until after 4 a. m., charged with murder, and taken to the jail in Rockville. On the evening of February 28 he was brought to the State's Attorney's office, where he was permitted to see the woman's head in a basket.

The first objection to rulings on evidence arises from the exclusion of a question which the defense directed to Officer Utz, after he had narrated about the finding of the woman's head on the Seneca Road in Virginia. This question was: 'Did you make any effort to assertain or find out whether or not the person whose head was found has been killed or murdered around that section of the country?' Defendant's contention is that, if any part of the body of a resident of Maryland is found in another State, the police in that State ought to make an investigation, and that at the trial of this case he should have been permitted to show that no investigation had been made by Officer Utz. The law is established in this State that the method, scope and extent of cross-examination are within the trial court's discretion, and in the absence of an abuse of discretion will not be interfered with on appeal. We also accept the rule that cross-examination can relate only to the facts and incidents connected with matters stated in the direct examination of the witness, and if a party desires to examine a witness as to other matters, he must do so by making the witness his own. Marino v. State, 171 Md. 104, 187 A. 858; Armiger v. Baltimore Transit Co., 173 Md. 416, 196 A. 111. The statement of Officer Utz that the head was found in Fairfax County was not controverted, and no benefit could possibly be gained by cross-examining the witness in reference to the statement. Speaking of the question in dispute, the trial judge said: 'That would only be negative evidence. Suppose he did or suppose the didn't.' If counsel for the defense thought that Mrs. Corens had been murdered in Virginia, and that Officer Utz had any information on the subject, they could have called him as a witness for the defense.

Captain James McAuliffe, of the Montgomery County Police, was asked to repect his conversation with the defendant at the time of his arrest. The witness replied that he asked defendant whether he had ever been in Virginia, and defendant said 'he had been across Chain Bridge, and a very short distance after he crossed Chain Bridge he came back.' Defendant says the question should have specified the time of the trip, as his alleged reply may have misled the jury to believe that he had crossed the Potomac on the night of February 12, leading them to the inference that he carried his wife's body with him. What happened at the trial, however, was that when his attorney interrupted the examination to inquire when it was that he 'went over there to Virginia,' the State's Attorney requested that he be allowed to conduct the direct examination without interruption. Since defendant had the privileged of cross-examination, we find no reversible error in the testimony. The judge assured the defense in plain words: 'You have a right in your cross-examination to ask all you want.'

Defendant made objection when the State recalled Dr. J. W. Bird to the witness stand to explain a statement he had made on a previous day of the...