Guthrie v. United States, 11560.

• Decision Date: 25 June 1953
• Docket Number: No. 11560.,11560.
• Citation: 92 US App. DC 361,207 F.2d 19
• Parties: GUTHRIE v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

92 US App. DC 361, 207 F.2d 19 (1953)

GUTHRIE v. UNITED STATES.

No. 11560.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued February 20, 1953.

Decided June 25, 1953.

Petition for Rehearing Denied July 30, 1953.

Mr. James J. Laughlin, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Albert J. Ahern, Jr., Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.

Mr. William E. Kirk, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., at the time of argument, with whom Messrs. Charles M. Irelan, U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., at the time of argument, Emory W. Reisinger, II, and William R. Glendon, Asst. U. S. Attys., Washington, D. C., at the time of argument, were on the brief, for appellee. Mr. Joseph M. Howard, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., at the time the record was filed, also entered his appearance for appellee. Mr. Leo A. Rover, U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., also entered an appearance for appellee.

Before EDGERTON, WILBUR K. MILLER and WASHINGTON, Circuit Judges.

WILBUR K. MILLER, Circuit Judge.

On Friday, November 30, 1951, in Harry Guthrie's room on the third floor of a rooming house in the District of Columbia, Ruth Leong was brutally assaulted and a soft drink bottle¹ was introduced into her body. About midnight she was taken by the police to a hospital, where the bottle was removed, but she died December 12, 1951, from general peritonitis resulting from a perforated intestine.

Guthrie was indicted for second degree murder, found guilty by a jury, and sentenced to imprisonment for twenty years, with a recommendation by the trial judge that he be committed to an institution where he could have psychiatric treatment. Guthrie appeals. We have carefully considered the voluminous transcript of evidence concerning what apparently was a sadistic crime, but shall refer to the proof only to the extent necessary for discussion of the points pressed by the appellant as reasons for reversal.

The third floor of the rooming house contained four single rooms, a small apartment and a common bathroom. The rooms were numbered from 5 to 8, both inclusive. On the fateful Friday, room 6 at the front of the house was occupied by the appellant; rooms 5 and 7 were vacant. Francis Moran occupied room 8 and the apartment at the back of the house, numbered 9, was occupied by a Mr. and Mrs. Sugg and their small son.

Guthrie testified that he was in the room with Ruth Leong from about 9:00 or 10:00 o'clock in the morning of November 30 until he left some time near midafternoon while the woman was still there. He had previously decided, he said, to give up his room that day, so he took his luggage with him. He went to his aunt's home in nearby Maryland and remained there continuously until he was awakened at 2:30 a. m. the following Monday by a telephone call from his sister. She told him the police were looking for him and advised him to leave his aunt's home. He left immediately, escaping the officers by ten minutes. On the following Wednesday, December 5, accompanied by an attorney, Guthrie appeared at police headquarters and surrendered.

Moran testified for the government. He came to his room about 2:15 p. m. on November 30 for sandwiches and coffee and stayed some thirty minutes. About 2:30 he heard "drumbling," which he defined as "words which you could not make out," coming from the end of the hall at the front of the house. As he was leaving his room he heard from the same direction a woman's voice say, "Whatever you are doing, please don't do this to me," and "Let's get dressed and go out and eat, and I want to go see my mother and dad."

After leaving his room about 2:45 p. m., Moran went to a picture show and other places and returned to his room about 8:30 or 8:45 p. m. He prepared to shave and started to the bathroom, the door of which was open. A nude woman was standing at the basin, filling a glass with water. She passed him in the hall returning to room 6. He observed that both her eyes were black, her nose was bloody, and her mouth was "beat in." After shaving and returning to his room, Moran heard a woman in room 6 groaning and heard her say, "Please call the cops" or "Call the ambulance. Please get me out of here." He and one Overton, husband of the landlady's daughter, who lived on a lower floor, entered room 6 shortly thereafter and found lying on the bed the woman he had seen in the bathroom, in what he described as a "half-way unconscious" condition.

The police were called and Officers Stroebel and Minnick arrived shortly before midnight. Stroebel testified he heard the woman groaning as he was in the hall approaching room 6. The small room was in disorder and an unclothed woman, with both eyes blacked and face discolored, was on the bed groaning loudly. When the officer asked her what had happened, she replied, "Harry did it," and in a few words described the assault. Her voice was so low he had to lean over with his ear a few inches from her mouth in order to hear. She said she was in terrific pain and screamed as she was carried to an ambulance. Another policeman, who examined room 6 about 1:30 a. m. on December 1, found a Tru-Ade bottle under the bed.

Officers Rudbeck and Clark had a conversation with Guthrie in the psychiatric ward at Gallinger Hospital on the morning of December 12. Rudbeck testified concerning the statements then made by appellant: He first met Ruth Leong on a streetcar on the evening of Wednesday, November 28, as he was returning home from work. She had been drinking and had a black eye. Upon alighting they had beer together and she asked where he lived. He told her his street address but gave her the wrong room number, as he surmised she was a prostitute and he wanted to avoid further contact. He next saw her in the early morning of Friday, November 30, when she came to his room, in a drunken condition and with two black eyes,² and asked for something to drink. She refused the wine he offered and suggested they go out somewhere to get drinks. He remonstrated because he had only been in bed since 3:00 a. m., but finally agreed, and they went to a tavern where each consumed a number of drinks of whiskey "chased" with beer. Leaving the tavern they proceeded by cab to his rooming house, stopping on the way at a liquor store where he bought a bottle of whiskey and two bottles of orange Tru-Ade. When they reached his room they drank from the bottle. He lay down on the bed and she began to undress. At this point we quote from Rudbeck's testimony:

"So he said she started to disrobe, and he said the next thing he remembered — rather, the last thing he remembered he looked at her when she was standing alongside the bed at the dresser with just a girdle on. He said he didn\'t remember anything from then until he woke up some time later and he noticed there was blood all over the bed and all over her, and she was laying there apparently in pain, and he asked her what had happened. And she said, `Oh, my God you have hurt me. Get me to a doctor,\' or `Get me a doctor.\'

"He said, `I said I\'m not going to get a doctor or get you to a doctor. You are going to have to get up and get dressed and go to the doctor yourself.\'"

While the interview was in progress, Officer Clark received a telephone message that Ruth Leong had died and informed Guthrie, who said, according to Rudbeck's testimony, "that if she had died he didn't mean to kill her; that if he did anything to her he didn't mean to kill her."

In his testimony, Guthrie told of his first meeting with Ruth Leong and of the episodes of November 30 substantially as Rudbeck had recounted the story told to him, except that he said he did not remember telling the officer that the woman wanted a doctor and he denied that he told Rudbeck the bed was bloody.

The point most heavily emphasized as ground for reversal is that the trial judge erred in permitting Stroebel to tell the jury Ruth Leong said "Harry did it," and in permitting him to repeat the other statements she made just before midnight. Appellant contends that the woman's accusatory statement, which he says was described as incoherent by one of the officers in the room and which was made at least eleven hours after the alleged assault, several days before death, and in answer to a question, lacked spontaneity and was therefore inadmissible.

It is impossible to formulate a hard and fast rule for determining whether the declaration of a victim of violence is...