Falcon v. People
| Decision Date | 23 May 1960 |
| Docket Number | No. 19009,19009 |
| Parties | Peter FALCON, Plaintiff in Error, v. PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Defendant in Error. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Peter Falcon, pro se.
Duke W. Dunbar, Atty. Gen., Frank E. Hickey, Deputy Atty. Gen., J. F. Brauer, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.
Plaintiff in error, hereinafter referred to as the defendant, was accused of the murder of his wife. He entered a plea of not guilty, and upon trial the jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree. Motion for new trial was overruled and the court entered judgment on the verdict, sentencing the defendant to a term of not less than thirty nor more than forty years in the penitentiary at Canon City.
Defendant, appearing in this court pro se, seeks reversal by writ of error. His 'brief' assigns error under nineteen separate captions. Matters discussed under nine of these captions were not made a part of the motion for a new trial, and although not required to do so, we have read the 'arguments' in support of these 'assignments' and find them to be without merit.
Six of the captions contained in the brief of defendant relate to matters occurring during trial, to which no objection was made. Such matters are not properly before us, are trivial in nature, without legal substance, and undeserving of further mention.
The evidence upon which the people relied for conviction was chiefly circumstantial. A summary thereof follows:
The evidence shows that early on the morning of July 2, 1952, defendant left his Denver apartment and went out in the hall to get water for coffee. While there he met and talked to a neighbor, Mr. Sabia. He then returned to his apartment, raised the window shade, and looked at his wife who was still in bed. She had blood on her chest and he got a towel to clean it off. About that time he became 'really concerned' and ran to the police station a short distance away to report the matter and ask for an ambulance. He then rushed back to his apartment and found two officers already there. The officers observed a partially clothed body, later identified as Mrs. Lucille Falcon, lying on the bed with a wet towel draped across her forethead and two wounds in the upper part of her left chest. Shortly thereafter, a physician who had been summoned arrived and pronounced her dead. It was his professional opinion that she had been dead approximately two hours. An investigator from the Denver Medical Examiner's office also arrived and reached substantially the same conclusion.
Later that day, July 2, 1952, the Chief Coroner's Pathologist performed an autopsy on the body of the deceased. An examination of the two small wounds on the left side of the chest revealed them to be about two and two and one-half inches deep respectively and were caused by a sharp instrument. In was the pathologist's opinion that death was caused by a 'stab wound of the chest.'
Officer Bates of the Denver Police Department investigated defendant's apartment that same morning. In the course of his investigation he picked up a pair of scissors which appeared to have a small spot of blood on them, two sheets and a pillow from the bed, and the green towel which the defendant said he had used to wipe the blood from his wife's chest. Detective Ward, of the Denver Police Department, observed blood on the sheets, and on a T-shirt which he said the defendant was wearing.
The foregoing evidence was undisputed. The disputed evidence is concerned directly with what transpired during the early morning hours prior to the victim's death, and the responsibilty of the defendant therefor.
Defendant steadfastly maintained, when questioned by the police and while on the witness stand, that his wife must have committed suicide, and that he had nothing to do with her death. Several times on the day of the death, he told officers of the events which he claimed had transpired the night before and that morning. His story was that both he and his wife had been to several bars the night before; that he had gotten disgusted with her because she had 'rolled a soldier' for $120, thrown the money to another man when the police came to investigate, and then wanted to go and try to get the money back; that he wanted nothing to do with such a matter and so went home alone and went to bed; that his wife came in shortly afterwards...
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