Golden v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 01 November 1938
• Citation: 121 S.W.2d 21,275 Ky. 208
• Parties: GOLDEN v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

121 S.W.2d 21

275 Ky. 208

GOLDEN v. COMMONWEALTH.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

November 1, 1938

Appeal from Circuit Court, Knox County.

Green Clay Golden was convicted of willful murder, and he appeals.

Affirmed.

Hiram H. Owens, of Barbourville, for appellant.

Hubert Meredith, Atty. Gen., and J. M. Campbell, Asst. Atty. Gen for the Commonwealth.

PERRY Justice.

The appellant, Green Clay Golden, having been indicted by the grand jury of Knox county, charging him with the willful murder of Simon Blanton, committed by shooting and killing him, he was upon his trial on the charge found guilty and his punishment fixed at life imprisonment.

The only grounds urged for reversal of the judgment are: (1) The alleged error of the court in admitting prejudicial evidence (2) that the court should have directed the jury to acquit appellant; and, if not that, then an instruction on temporary insanity should have been given; and (3) the alleged prejudicial argument by the commonwealth's attorney.

It is here undenied that appellant shot and killed Simon Blanton when they met in the court-house square of Barbourville Kentucky, on the afternoon of November 3, 1937.

The commonwealth contended that the killing was done willfully and with malice aforethought and not in the accused's selfdefense or when temporarily insane, or even in sudden heat and passion.

The appellant's claim, on the other hand, is that at the time he shot and killed the deceased, he was advancing on him with a knife and that it was necessary to shoot and kill him to save his own life.

The record shows that the appellant lived some three or four miles out from Barbourville, the county seat of Knox county, on the farm of Wiley Saylor, where he and his large family worked the farm as tenants and all together occupied his small three-room residence with him.

Further, it is shown that the deceased, Simon Blanton, a married man, lived with his two bachelor brothers, Garrard and Floyd Blanton, on their large farm some two miles further distant from Barbourville and down the road, beyond the appellant's home.

It is also shown that more than a year prior to the homicide, the deceased's brother Garrard Blanton had seduced and gotten with child appellant's young fifteen year old daughter, Sally Mae, and that on the day before the appellant's tragic shooting of Simon Blanton occurred, this young, deserted mother had carried her bastard child to the home of its father, Garrard Blanton, to be there provided and cared for by him, and from there went on in search of employment.

In the afternoon of this same day, Simon Blanton went with one Hensley to carry this illegitimate child back to its mother at the appellant's home. On arriving there at Golden's home, Hensley took the baby into the house and delivered it to appellant's wife and daughter-in-law. Hensley also at the time asked Mrs. Golden if he might leave his saddle bags there with her and that he would get them as he came back from Barbourville that night. He told them that his pistol was in the saddle bags which he took out, unloaded it and put it back in them.

It appears that while Hensley was thus engaged in the home, the deceased, Simon Blanton, got out of the car and walked to its rear to urinate at the time the appellant's little ten year old granddaughter was walking by, when Blanton, wilfully turning himself so as to front her and the women in the home, made an indecent exposure of his person before them, and when reprimanded by the appellant and the father of the child for thus insulting his family, and told to stop and go to the barn for such purposes, he answered, "I will do this anywhere I want to. It is none of your g. d. business what I do."

It is shown that this act of indignity and contempt on the part of the deceased for the humble womanhood of appellant's family greatly excited and enraged both the appellant and his son, the child's father, when their efforts to put a stop to his indecent exposure of his person only elicited from him jeering replies and oaths.

Further the evidence is that early the following morning the appellant took the pistol of Hensley, which he had left the day before with appellant's wife, procured other cartridges with which he reloaded it, when, with his son, Jim, he started about five o'clock to go to Barbourville, to there procure an indictment against Garrard Blanton on the charge of having seduced his daughter, but which he failed to get, as he was told he could not get an indictment upon his testimony, but would have to produce his daughter, Sally Mae, to present her complaint to them.

It is testified by some of the commonwealth's witnesses that they saw the appellant and his son Jim in Barbourville before the homicide occurred and heard them talking, and that they were "on the lookout" for deceased.

As to this, the witness, Cecil Scott, testifies that his attention was attracted to appellant and his son as they walked towards the front of the courthouse when he heard Jim, appellant's son, say, "Where's the son o. b. gone to?" when Green (the appellant) said, "Come on here--come on Jim," and that they then turned and started walking off and that he didn't see them any more until the later shooting when he was standing about the same place, "when he turned around and seen the boy lying on the ground *** kinder on his face; *** that Green walked up behind him, more on the right side and reached over *** and fired in his back;" that as he was shot, that "Simon was kinda moving, raising kinda up, a little every time he shot him--just barely;" that the appellant shot him, "the best he could remember," about four or five times right between the shoulders and hips; that the boy (Golden's son, Jim) acted like he was trying to hold the appellant when he jumped on the right side of deceased and "put the gun to his head the last time" and shot him as he lay with his face toward the ground; and that he heard appellant's boy say to him, "Look, what you have done."

Owen Hibbard, also a commonwealth witness, states that when the first shot was fired, "I looked around and there was another shot fired and the man (Blanton) was pitching right toward me"; that after that four more shots were fired right close together and it "looked like he (appellant) was shooting right at his head." When asked, "Did the man that fell ever do or offer to do anything after you looked?" he answered, "Not a thing in the world. Everything I heard the man that got killed say was, 'Lord, have mercy on me."' When asked, "Did you hear the defendant make any statement?" he answered, "Never heard him say nothing, only he says, 'You g. d. s. o. b."' which he said when he was shooting him; that he "had the pistol right down on him." Witness states that he was standing there when the body was picked up, but that he did not see anything in the way of weapon on the ground or in Blanton's hand, or about him.

Gowess McDonald, another commonwealth witness, stated that he was a policeman of Barbourville, and while he was standing near the place where this homicide occurred, his attention was attracted by the sound of shots; that he looked and saw a man on the ground and another man shooting; that he went over and put the man who did the shooting under arrest and demanded his gun, which he gave him. When asked as to what was the then manner of the appellant, whether he was greatly agitated or excited, he answered that there was "something bad wrong," and that he didn't seem to be in a normal condition; that he didn't know how to describe his condition, but that appellant was "just shaking and jerking, saying, 'Keep the crowd back--I had to do the shooting.' He was just all to pieces;" that appellant then said, "He was coming on me with a knife," and that he had to shoot him, though he further testifies that he saw no knife there; that he took his prisoner, the appellant, into the courthouse to protect him.

Without further detailing the testimony of the several witnesses as to the circumstances of this homicide, which may be summarized as showing by practically every commonwealth witness, some of whom were standing within a few feet of the appellant at the time he shot the deceased, that the appellant shot deceased in the back and at a time when deceased was not in anywise harming or threatening to harm appellant nor when he either had or displayed any weapon with which he could harm him.

Some of the witnesses did state that after deceased was shot down by appellant and his body was being moved that they saw a white handled knife lying on the ground by the deceased, about the middle of his body or where he had lain and that the knife was closed or only very slightly open. A deputy sheriff, Smith, who was present at the arrest, testified that the knife was closed when he found it by the deceased and picked it up.

Nearly all of the commonwealth witnesses state that the deceased fell away from the appellant when he had twice shot him and that, after he had fallen on the ground, the appellant stood over him and fired three or four more shots into his back or head.

It is stipulated that the deceased was killed by these shots, fired by the appellant.

The commonwealth further sought by the introduction in evidence of the clothing and cap worn by the deceased when he was shot to establish that the bullet holes made by the shots therein showed that "the fiber had been pushed out" and that the holes in the front of the garment were larger, which they argued demonstrated that the bullets had passed through the body, entering from the back, and been so bent and expanded in passing through the body that they made larger holes at their exit in the front of the garments than where they entered, which...