Maddox v. Com.

• Decision Date: 12 August 1960
• Citation: 349 S.W.2d 686
• Parties: Taylor MADDOX, Sr., Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 686

349 S.W.2d 686

Taylor MADDOX, Sr., Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Aug. 12, 1960.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 20, 1961.

Grant F. Knuckles, W. R. Lay, Pineville, William L. Rose, Williamsburg, Lewis & Weaver, London, for appellant.

John B. Breckinridge, Atty. Gen., William F. Simpson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

PALMORE, Judge.

This appeal is from a judgment entered on a jury verdict finding the appellant, Taylor Maddox, Sr., guilty under KRS 431.170 as an accessory after the fact to the murder of Woodrow Smith and fixing his punishment at one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. The circumstances of the homicide are set forth in Warren v. Com., Ky.1960, 333 S.W.2d 766, wherein the conviction of John Henry Warren, the principal, was affirmed.

It is contended that the trial court erred to appellant's prejudice in (1) overruling his motions for a directed verdict, (2) receiving incompetent testimony, (3) instructing the jury, and (4) overruling his objections to improper argument to the jury by counsel.

On March 31, 1959, a large number of striking miners met at Arjay, some four miles from Pineville in Bell County, Kentucky, for the purpose of proceeding to and picketing various mines in the area. In charge of Maddox, a union field representative, they visited one location in Bell County and then set out for Woodrow Smith's mine on Stinking Creek in Knox County. The intention, according to Maddox, was to unionize Smith's men and talk to him about a contract with the union. John Henry Warren and John 'Billygoat' Cox, both of whom lived at or near Arjay, where the cavalcade originated, were among the passengers riding in Maddox's station wagon. Maddox, however, did not witness the murder. His car was parked a mile or so from Smith's mine, and he was first informed of the crime when Warren returned to the automobile, told Maddox there had been a shooting, that he had shot a man, and asked advice as to what he should do, whereupon Maddox recommended that he give himself up to the authorities. Maddox then drove Warren and Cox to Barbourville, county seat of Knox County, and there gave Warren a $10.00 bill and advised him to get a taxi. Warren and Cox accordingly took a taxicab from Barbourville to their respective homes in Bell County. The Sheriff of Bell County called on Warren the next day for the purpose of serving a subpoena to appear as a witness before a court of inquiry to be held at Barbourville, and at this time Warren reported that he had killed Smith and produced the fatal weapon from a coal pile near his home.

An accessory after the fact is one who, knowing a felony to have been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists a person whom he knows to be the felon, intending thereby to enable the felon to escape arrest or detection. Certainty of knowledge is not required. It is sufficient that the accused had actual knowledge of facts which would give him good reason to believe the person assisted to be the felon. 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law §§ 95-97, pp. 165-167; Tully v. Com., 1877, 13 Bush 142, 76 Ky. 142; Clark v. State, 1953, 159 Tex.Cr.R. 187, 261 S.W.2d 339. As quoted in Roberson v. State, 1943, 69 Ga.App. 541, 26 S.E.2d 142, 143, from an earlier decision, 'One cannot refrain from following up a clue, for fear of discovering the truth, and then shield himself behind such interntional ignorance.'

Any assistance whatever given to a felon to hinder his being apprehended, tried, or suffering punishment makes the assistor an accessory. IV Blackstone 37. 'The true test for determining whether one is an accessory after the fact is, to consider whether what he did was done by way of personal help to his principal, with the view of enabling the principal to elude punishment,--the kind of help rendered appearing to be unimportant.' I Bishop's Criminal Law 365 (§ 634).

On the other hand, actions that alone will not render one an accessory include (1) acts of charity that relieve or comfort a felon without tending to hinder his detection, apprehension or conviction, nor aid his escape, (2) nondisclosure of the crime, and (3) failure to apprehend or attempt to apprehend the criminal. 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law §§ 97-99, pp. 168-169.

Whether the evidence of Maddox's conduct following the shooting of Smith by Warren is sufficient to sustain his conviction as an accessory after the fact must be tested within the alembic of the foregoing concepts.

The information imparted to Maddox upon Warren's return to the automobile was certainly enough to put him on notice that a felony had been committed by Warren. That in fact it did so is affirmed not only by his recommendation then and there that Warren give himself up to the authorities, and by the course of his conduct thereafter, but more particularly by the following admission on cross-examination:

'Q. You knew the man had committed a felony, didn't you? A. I thought so.'

It is contended, however, that the evidence did not prove Maddox was given enough details of the shooting to know at the time whether the victim was dead or alive, hence he could not have known a murder had been committed. At common law one could not be an accessory unless the felony was complete. 'Thus, aiding the guilty party after he has given another a mortal wound, but before death has resulted therefrom, does not make the person giving such aid an accessory to the homicide.' Roberson's New Kentucky Criminal Law and Procedure (2d ed.), § 190; I Bishop's Criminal Law 364, (§ 632); 14 Am.Jur. 837 (Crim. Law, § 102); Harrel v. State, 1861, 39 Miss. 702, 80 Am.Dec. 95. It must be recalled, however, that 'under the common law an accessory after the fact was subject to the same punishment as the principal, 5 Blackstone p. 449; our statute reduced the offense to a misdemeanor.' White v. Com., 1945, 301 Ky. 228, 191 S.W.2d 244, 247. This circumstance is relevant in that the degree of punishment may then have required a greater nicety of proof than should now be considered necessary. Under our statute, KRS 431.170, the accessorial crime is a misdemeanor, an offense without degree, not dependent on the degree of the principal's crime, but only on his guilt of felony.

The culprit's work was complete when he fired the fatal shot or shots. He had committed a felony. Whether the victim lived or died fixed the gravity of his crime and the severity of punishment authorized by the law to be inflicted upon him, but it had no such relationship to an accessory after the fact. Therefore, the reason for the common-law rule just stated does not apply. It is our opinion that the jury was authorized to find from the evidence that Maddox had sufficient information to put him on notice that Warren had committed a felonious shooting. This was enough to lay upon Maddox the interdict of the law against rendering assistance to him.

The main assault on the evidence is that there was no proof of any design by Warren, the murderer, to escape detection or elude the processes of the law, nor of an intent by Maddox to help him do so. Maddox's story was that he took Warren to Barbourville in order that he might surrender himself, but Warren became fearful least he be subjected to violence and decided he would rather give himself up to the Sheriff of his home county at Pineville, whereupon Maddox gave him the money to take a taxi to Pineville for that purpose. Had the jury chosen to believe this version, an acquittal should and presumably would have resulted. Since, however, it was not incumbent on the jury to accept his testimony at face value, we must consider whether the evidence as a whole sustains a verdict on the theory that Maddox's actions proceeded from a criminal intent.

On the trip from Stinking Creek to Barbourville Maddox had three passengers, Warren, Cox and Arthur Lee Hamlett. He stopped first at a small store on the way out and paid a bill of some $72 for food, cigarettes, etc., bought there by the members of the picketing party on their way in. After reaching the main highway to Barbourville he stopped and attempted to reach his union superior in Middlessboro by telephone in order to report the shooting. On reaching Barbourville he parked at or near the court house square and placed or attempted to place another telephone call, to whom and for what purpose is not clear from the record. Maddox then drove a mile or so away from the court house to the railroad crossing at the edge of town, on the route to Pineville, where, according to the witness Cox, he 'said he would give us boys the money and we would get a taxi and go home.' (Emphasis added.) Maddox and his remaining passenger, Hamlett, thereupon departed in the direction of Pineville, which was on the way toward Maddox's home in Middlesboro. Warren and Cox returned by taxi to their home at Arjay, passing through Pineville en route.

Cox did not recall hearing Warren's having said anything at all about giving himself up, nor, specifically, did he hear any mention of Warren's being afraid to surrender at Barbourville. Cox testified that it was he (Cox) who made the suggestion to Maddox that it would be a 'pretty good idea' for him and Warren to go to Pineville in a taxi. He admitted that on a former trial (apparently the trial of Hamlett as an accessory, which resulted in an acquittal by direction) he had explained the matter as follows:

'Q. Why didn't you go back to Pineville with Maddox? A. He named something about wouldn't it be a pretty good idea for us to go through in a taxi and I told him I would.

'Q. Thought it a pretty good idea to go through in a taxi? A. Yes.'

Cox testified that he urged Warren to surrender himself at Pineville, as follows:

'Q. Did you ever say anything to Warren about giving up in Pineville? A. I did.

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'Q. Why didn't Warren give up in Pineville? A. I don't know anything about it.

'Q. Was anything said about it? A. I don't know whether anything was or...