Davis v. State

• Decision Date: 22 October 1964
• Docket Number: No. 25,25
• Citation: 236 Md. 389,204 A.2d 76
• Parties: Walter Clyde DAVIS, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 389

236 Md. 389

204 A.2d 76

Walter Clyde DAVIS, Jr. v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 25.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Oct. 22, 1964.

John F. McAuliffe, Rockville (Robert C. Heeney and Heeney & McAuliffe, Rockville, on the brief), for appellant.

Robert L. Karwacki, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Leonard T. Kardy and Charles Foster, State's Atty., and Asst. State's Atty., respectively, for Mortgomery County, Rockville, on the brief), for appellee.

Before HENDERSON, C. J., and HAMMOND, PRESCOTT, HORNEY and MARBURY, JJ.

MARBURY, Judge.

Walter Clyde Davis, Jr., appellant, was convicted of manslaughter by a jury in the Circuit Court for Caroline County. The indictment was for murder. However, the court granted the appellant's motion for judgment of acquittal of murder in the first degree, submitting to the jury the remaining degrees of homicide. He was sentenced to the Maryland Penitentiary for five years, and appeals from the judgment and sentence.

On July 2, 1963, Davis, a thirty-eight year old mechanic, resided with his mother, Bessie L. Davis, at 6117 Madawaska Road in Montgomery County, Maryland. This property had been for sale for some time and the electric service had been turned off, and the only illumination provided during the nighttime in the property was by a kerosene lantern. On that morning the appellant awakened after his mother left for work, and after drinking five or six bottles of beer, did an auto repair job in Malman Hills, a residential neighborhood close by his home. After completing this work he proceeded to the home of Harvey Roberts and the latter's mother, for the purpose of performing some grass cutting chores at their residence. When he had finished these chores, between 3:00 p. m. and 4:00 p. m. that day, he waited at the Roberts' residence for Harvey Roberts to return from work so that he could use the latter's car to return his grass cutting equipment to his home. This was done, and after dropping the equipment off at 6117 Madawaska Road, Harvey Roberts left the appellant near the Hill Top Tavern, located in Glen Echo Heights, at about 6:00 p. m. There the appellant drank some beer and then proceeded to a liquor store on MacArthur Boulevard where he bought a half-pint of whiskey and a bottle of wine. Leaving the liquor store he stopped at a nearby park where he consumed the bottle of whiskey and then returned to the Hill Top tavern at about 8:00 p. m. Davis had planned to meet his mother at the tavern where she was to stop on her way home from work.

He continued to drink beer at the Hill Top tavern, where he met Robert P. Moline (alias Jack Moline), with whom he had not been acquainted previously. Davis testified that after returning to Hill Top and continuing the comsumption of alcohol, he felt 'fuzzy' and only 'vaguely' recalled leaving the tavern. From the testimony of witnesses other than Davis it appears that these two went to appellant's home in a taxicab between 8:30 p. m. and 9:00 p. m. About 9:45 p. m. that evening the appellant's mother arrived home. She testified that she saw no one but her son in the house. At 10:45 p. m., after drinking one beer with him, she went to sleep in her second floor room. Davis remained downstairs, since he customarily slept on a couch on the first floor. About 3:45 a. m., on the following morning, while she was in the course of dressing for work, Mrs. Davis heard a commotion outside of the house, but she continued dressing and left the house at 4:30 a. m. for the purpose of boarding a bus which would take her to her place of employment.

The appellant testified that some time after his mother arrived home on July 2 and retired for the evening to her second floor bedroom, he went to sleep on the couch on the first floor. He was aroused some time during the night by 'somebody trying to get in bed with me,' and to take his trousers off. In describing his reaction to this, he stated: 'I think I raised straight up in the bed and started swinging * * * I hit something.' His trousers in which he had been sleeping had been pulled down below his knees, causing him to stumble as he jumped out of bed. He recalled scuffling with the person who had tried to get into bed with him but denied any further knowledge concerning the incident.

On July 3, 1963, Isaac H. Moore, Jr., who had been employed as a real estate broker for the sale of the property occupied by the appellant and his mother, stopped at 6117 Madawaska Road at about noon and noticed that the 'For Sale' sign which was supposed to have been placed on the premises was not present. He and his secretary, who had accompanied him on this visit to the property, walked to the rear yard of the premises in the hope of finding the real estate sign. In the back yard they observed a body which was lying under a pile of debris made up basically of automobile parts. Next to where the body was lying was a shallow hole 'perhaps five to six feet long and a couple foot wide, approximately three or five inches deep.' They concluded that the person that they found was dead and, without disturbing any of the debris which covered the body, immediately notified the Glen Echo Fire Department, which was close by the property. The department personnel responded to the message received from Mr. Moore within ten minutes. Lt. Denell of the Montgomery County Police Department was present at the fire house when Mr. Moore reported finding the dead body, and even though the lieutenant was off duty at the time, he proceeded to the Davis premises with the firemen. They arrived at approximately 12:20 p. m. and were shortly thereafter joined by Officer Wisda of the Montgomery County Police.

A preliminary investigation of the scene disclosed the dead body of a person later identified as Jack Moline, who was known to be an overt homosexual. The body was lying under a pile of automobile parts and other debris, and it appeared that the person had been dead for some time. Close to the body lay a long-handled shovel and a pick. There was a discernible trail of blood and scuffed grass leading from the place where the body was found to the back porch of the property and to the back door. The body lay seventy-one feet from the back steps of the house. Severe lacerations and contusions about the head and trunk of the body were apparent and, in the opinion of the pathologist who examined the deceased on July 3, at 2:30 p. m., were the cause of death. The same pathologist also noted that the blood test conducted on the deceased demonstrated that he was intoxicated at the time of his death. The fly on the pants worn by the deceased was unzippered and his private parts were partially exposed.

A few minutes after his arrival on the scene, Lt. Denell walked from the back yard where the deceased had been found to the front of the house, where he knocked on the door. Receiving no response, he looked in the window located to his left as he faced the door and noticed a pair of human feet; his further view was blocked by a partition within the house. He reported what he had observed to the firemen and to Officer Wisda as he returned to the back yard. Together with Officer Wisda and Lt. Arnold of the Glen Echo Fire Department, Lt. Denell went to the back steps of the house from where blood stains could be observed on the back porch, which was enclosed by screening, the door to which was latched. A small sledge hammer was seen on the porch. The screen on the door to the porch was forced and the door unlatched whereupon, led by Officer Wisda, who was in uniform and armed, Lt. Denell and Lt. Arnold entered the enclosed back porch and went into the house through an unlocked kitchen door.

When the officers went through the kitchen to the adjoining dining room they found the appellant, whose feet had been observed through the front window, sleeping on a couch, and aroused him. Bloodstains were apparent on the sheet upon which he was sleeping and the condition of the interior of the house indicated that a struggle had taken place. They thereupon placed him under arrest and conducted a search of the premises.

Following the arrest the police seized items which were later placed into evidence at the trial of the appellant. They were a sheet from defendant's bed, shoes found in the dining room, cotton print material from a clothes hamper, a section of the baseboard cut out of the kitchen wall, and a piece of rug cut from the dining room floor. Items smeared with blood were taken from the back yard and back porch of the premises. These were the pick and shovel taken from the yard near the body, a sledge hammer found on the back porch, a hatchet found in a tool box located outside the house, and blood specimens taken from the back yard and back porch of the premises. All of these items, together with an empty Pall Mall cigarette package and a pair of socks hereinafter mentioned, were submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for analysis. The Bureau's report indicated that human blood was found on each of said items examined which was of the same general type as the blood of the deceased.

The appellant was removed to the Montgomery County police station at Bethesda, and his interrogation by the police began at about 4:00 p. m. of the same day. A warrant was obtained and read to him at 4:30 p. m., charging him with murder of Robert P. Moline. They talked to him on several occasions that day until midnight. During this time an empty Pall Mall cigarette package and a pair of socks then worn by the appellant were taken from him and later admitted into evidence at the trial.

Interrogation was continued for a short period at 3:15 p. m. on July 4. On that occasion he recalled that he was very intoxicated when he left the Hill Top Tavern between 8:30 p. m. and 9:00 p. m. on July 2. He remembered awakening during that night thinking he had 'done something awful but couldn't remember what it was.' After these...