Grammer v. State, 18

• Decision Date: 12 November 1953
• Docket Number: No. 18,18
• Citation: 203 Md. 200,100 A.2d 257
• Parties: GRAMMER v. STATE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 200

203 Md. 200

100 A.2d 257

GRAMMER v. STATE.

No. 18.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Nov. 12, 1953.

Jos. Sherbow, Baltimore (Theodore Sherbow and Edward F. Shea, Jr., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Ambrose T. Hartman, Asst. Atty. Gen., and J. Harold Grady, Asst. State's Atty., Baltimore (Edw. D. E. Rollins, Atty. Gen., and Anselm Sodaro, State's Atty., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before SOBELOFF, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and HAMMOND, JJ.

HAMMOND, Judge.

George Eward Grammer was tried by a Judge, without a jury, in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City on an indictment charging him with the murder of his wife. He was found guilty, in the first degree. A motion for a new trial, relying substantially on the same grounds which are urged here, was denied by the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City, two of the ten judges who sat dissenting. After the denial of the motion, Grammer was sentenced to hang. From this judgment and sentence he appeals.

The appellant says that at the time he was tried he could not, and in fact did not, obtain a fair trial. Three reasons are asserted. The first is that by extensive and all enveloping television, newspaper, and radio publicity as to the crime, before and after indictment, fostered and participated in by the prosecuting officials and the police, the State not only stripped him of his presumption of innocence and convicted him of premeditated murder before he entered the court room to be tried, but also deprived him of his free election of a trial by jury and his opportunity of a fair hearing before a judge. The second error urged is that his confessions were not voluntary and should not have been admitted in evidence against him. Third, he claims that the evidence before the Court did not warrant a verdict of murder in the first degree.

The State, in the course of the preparation for printing of the joint appendix to be filed here, petitioned this Court to remand the record to the lower court for correction, or to expunge exhibits consisting of newspaper, magazine, television and radio stories of the crime and the case because they had not been in evidence at the trial. We denied the relief prayed and reserved the contentions made by the petition for determination at the time this appeal was decided.

At the start of the trial on October 14, 1952, the traverser, by his trial counsel who was not his counsel on appeal, made a proffer 'for the record as evidence in this case' of the issues of all local newspapers containing stories of the case, and a similar proffer as to 'all local television and radio stations * * * and as to the September 15, 1952 issue of Life Magazine' to show that publicity had deprived him of his constitutional right of trial by jury. The Court delayed its ruling on the proffers until after arraignment. The appellant then pleaded not guilty and, once again, elected to be tried by the Court without a jury. (At his original arraignment on September 16, he had elected in open court to take a Court trial). After the plea and the election, the Court said, over the State's objection, that the exhibits were in the record but that the election of the defendant to take a trial by the Court eliminated any reason to take action on them. Since the exhibits were before the lower Court and were ruled to be in the record we will deny the petition of the State that they be expunged.

The nature and facts of the crime made publicity inevitable. Soon after midnight on August 20, 1952, two Baltimore County policemen who had just turned their radio cruise car into Taylor Avenue from Belair Road, saw a Chrysler sedan coming downgrade on Taylor Avenue at high speed. Suddenly it ran off the road to the right and over a lawn, came back onto the road and crossed to the other side, hit a bank, went up over it, hit a tree, turned over on its right side and came to rest against a telephone pole. In the car was Mrs. Grammer, under the dash, bent over so her head was between her knees. Her face and hair were matted with blood. She was apparently then dead; certainly, she was dead on arrival at the hospital. The first stories in the newspapers indicated that the police thought she had been fatally injured when her car went out of control going down hill on Taylor Avenue. Pictures were published of Grammer at the home of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Schmidt, showing him seemingly a very much affected and bereaved husband. Early police suspicions that the death was murder and not accidental had been aroused in part by a stone found wedged under the heel of the accelerator so as to cause it to feed gas to the engine of the car which had an automatic drive. The Chief Medical Examiner of Baltimore, Dr. Russell S. Fisher, found, as he later testified, that death had been caused by craniocerebral injuries including lacerated wounds of the scalp and ear and extensive fracturing of the skull, inflicted by multiple blunt impacts coming from left to right. There was also extensive aspiration and ingestion of blood. The back of the left hand and the left arm were swollen and purplish. Dr. Fisher examined the car and found no object or surface which in his opinion could possibly have produced the injuries suffered by Mrs. Grammer. Further, he said the bruises could not have come from the accident because dead bodies do not bruise. His conclusion, reported in the papers several days after the happening, was that she had been murdered and the automobile accident arranged to conceal the crime. Pictures were then again published showing Mrs. Schmidt acting as Grammer's nurse, giving him sleeping pills and reporting that he was 'dazed by murder'. Mrs. Schmidt reported that her daughter had once been beaten by an enemy while the husband was in the army. Grammer issued a public appeal for held 'so that whoever is responsible for this will not have a chance to harm someone else'. Public interest in what the papers called the 'near perfect crime' was fanned by stories as to the pebble under the accelerator and comment on the obvious fact that if chance had not caused the car to swerve and overturn on Taylor Avenue, it would have torn across heavily travelled Belair Road--U.S. Route 1--and either struck another vehicle or a stone and concrete wall along the east side of Belair Road. If this had happened the evidence as to the cause of death and the accelerator might well have been obscured by resulting fire or wreckage and the near perfect crime have become the perfect crime.

On Sunday afternoon, August 31, while in custody of the police, Grammer confessed that after a brief quarrel in the parked Chrysler, he had struck his wife with a piece of iron pipe.

About 4:20 p. m. on Sunday, August 31, the only formal statement ever issued by the State's Attorney was given out. It appeared in the newspapers the next day. The statement read: 'After an investigation in connection with the death of Dorothy May Grammer, and interrogation of a number of witnesses, including George Edward Grammer, Mr. Grammer will be charged with the killing of his wife * * *.' There are no evening newspapers published in Baltimore on Sunday, but at 10:45 p. m. there was a television broadcast over a station owned by one of the newspapers. Present in the studio, and shown to the television audience, were the State's Attorney of Baltimore City and two Assistant State's Attorneys of Baltimore County, and two Baltimore County policemen. The commentator said to the television audience that: 'We are told tonight by Mr. Anselm Sodaro, State's Attorney for Baltimore City, who is here in the studios with us, that Mr. Grammer has been charged with the murder of his wife. * * *' In introducing those present, as the camera was focused on them, the commentator said: ' * * * we'd like you to meet this team which has been responsible for bringing a conclusion to this case, that is, conclusion before pretrial. * * *' No one spoke, other than the commentators except Mr. Sodaro, who, after pictures had been shown of the Chrysler, the Towson Court House, of Grammer being taken to the scene of the crime, and the scene of the crime, confirmed a statement that this was in Baltimore City about a sixth of a mile from the County line by saying: 'That's correct.' Several times the announcer warned of pre-judgment. Once he said he would not go into details or motives because: '* * * we will not attempt to pre-judge.'; and again, '* * * we will ask for no comment from these police and prosecuting officials at this time in the best interests of Mr. Grammer so that we will not prejudice his case.'

On September 2, it was announced in the paper that Dr. Fisher would explain on television step-by-step the facts which led to his conclusion that Dorothy May Grammer's death was homicide. This was done on one of a series of television broadcasts produced by the University of Maryland on a program entitled 'Death and the Law'. No transcript of the program is available but a summary, verified as accurate by Dr. Fisher, shows that he had been scheduled to appear on the program, before the Grammer murder occurred, to describe the functions of the office of the Medical Examiner. It was suggested to him that he use the Grammer case as an illustration of his work. With the prior approval of the State's Attorney, he did so. The appellant's name was not mentioned, although photographs of Mrs. Grammer were used.

Another dereliction by the State complained of by the appellant is that a newspaper photographer was permitted to take a picture of the Chrysler while it was on a police lot with a stone lodged under the accelerator, placed there by the photographer, and this picture was used by Dr. Fisher on his broadcast without a statement that it was staged. Also, it is said, detectives showed photographers where the pipe, the murder weapon, had been found. The final charge is that the State, through the Judge who heard the case as...