Maxwell v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 11 September 1936
• Citation: 187 S.E. 506
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: MAXWELL. v. COMMONWEALTH.

187 S.E. 506

MAXWELL.

v.COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Sept. 11, 1936.

HOLT, J., and CAMPBELL, C. J., dissenting.

Error to Circuit Court, Wise County.

Edith Maxwell was convicted of murder in the first degree, and she brings error. Reversed and remanded for trial de novo.

Argued before CAMPBELL, C. J., and HOLT, HUDGINS, GREGORY, BROWNING, and EGGLESTON, JJ.

M. J. Fulton, of Richmond, Charles H. Smith, of Alexandria, Gail Laughlin, of Portland, Me, W. W. G. Dotson and R. P. Bruce, both of Wise, and A. A. Skeen, of Clintwood, for plaintiff in error.

Abram P. Staples, Atty. Gen, Edwin H. Gibson, Asst. Atty. Gen, and Joseph L. Kelly, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen, for the Commonwealth.

EGGLESTON, Justice.

Petitioner, Edith Maxwell, and Ann Maxwell were jointly indicted in the circuit court of Wise county for the murder of Trigg Maxwell, the father of Edith and the husband of Ann Maxwell. Edith Maxwell was separately tried, convicted of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to confinement in the state penitentiary for twenty-five years.

The principal assignment of error is that the evidence is not sufficient to support the verdict.

Taken in the light of the verdict, the record discloses these facts: Petitioner is a young woman twenty-one years of age, still living with her parents in Wise county where she was born and reared. Largely through her own efforts she had finished high school and obtained two years of college education fitting herself as a teacher. She had taught for one year in the public schools of her native county and was preparing to continue such work.

Trigg Maxwell, petitioner's father, was some fifty-odd years old and a coal miner by occupation. When sober he was kind and good to his family, but unfortunately he was addicted to drink, and when under, the influence of liquor was quarrelsome, abusive to his wife and children, and inclined to otherwise treat them unreasonably. Whether he was drunk at the time of his death is the subject of much conflict in the evidence. The accused and her wit-nesses claim that he was, while the commonwealth's witnesses contend that he was not. The jury's verdict, of course, settled this conflict adversely to the accused. But even so, the commonwealth's evidence shows that he had been drinking shortly preceding the occurrences leading to his death.

On Saturday afternoon, July 20, 1935, Trigg Maxwell left home and did not return until about 10:30 p. m. Only his wife, Ann Maxwell, and his twelve year old daughter, Mary Katherine, were then there, and both had retired. He turned on the light and immediately began quarreling with his wife as to where she had been picking berries that day and where she intended going the next. Something was said by him about giving her "thirty minutes to leave the house" the next morning. Thinking that he was drunk, the wife remonstrated with him and urged him to go to bed, but he declined to do so and went out of the house. Mrs. Maxwell and Mary Katherine then went to sleep.

About 12:30 a. m. the husband returned home. Upon finding that Edith had not then returned, he became irritated, remarking that "a man ought to take a club and break her neck." His wife again remonstrated with him, accused him of being drunk, and again tried to induce him to retire, which he refused to do.

According to the nextdoor neighbors, who testified for the commonwealth, shortly before 1:00 o'clock that night a car drove up, some one got out, and went into the Maxwell home. Almost immediately an altercation began and continued for about ten minutes. Loud voices of the father, mother, and Edith were heard. The parties appeared to be "scuffling." In a short while the voice of Trigg Maxwell was heard repeatedly crying in distress: "Oh Lordy! Oh Lordy!" Edith, partly clad, was seen to run out o'f the house and heard to call to her younger sister, Mary Katherine, to bring her shoes and clothes.

Chant Kelly, the head of the family living nextdoor and still awake, went over to the Maxwell home to render aid. He was met by the accused, who refused his proffered assistance. Kelly then returned to his own house. Immediately the radio began playing in the Maxwell house with sufficient volume to drown out any other noises therein. This continued for about ten minutes; then there was quiet.

After a period of about thirty minutes, Mary Katherine Maxwell ran to the Kelly residence calling for help, saying that her father was dying. Upon the arrival of the neighbors and a physician, Trigg Maxwell was found lying in the doorway leading from the kitchen to the porch, with his head about thirty inches from a meat block. He was clad only in his underclothes, was unconscious, and died within fifteen minutes.

In explanation of his condition, the accused, her mother and younger sister, Mary Katherine, at first said that the deceased had been drunk and had fallen and struck his head against the meat block, sustaining the injuries of which he died. Not until after the arrest, a day or so later, of the accused and her mother, upon the charge of having murdered the deceased, was anything said by either of them, or by Mary Katherine, as to there having been any altercation between Edith and her father.

An autopsy performed on the body of the deceased disclosed three wounds upon the head. The first was a fairly clean cut three-fourths of an inch long commencing one inch above the hair margin and extending down through the entire scalp to the bone. The skull was not fractured. One of the other wounds was on the left side of the head and the other was on the right. They were not cuts, but more in the nature of severe bruises. There was likewise a slight bruise above the nose, and both eyes were somewhat swollen and bruised. The deceased had also sustained a bruise on the left forearm and a slight cut on the right little finger. According to the physicians, death was caused by a brain hemorrhage attributable to the wound just above the forehead and first described.

While there is some conflict in the details, the testimony of Edith, her mother and sister, is substantially in accord. They say that Edith returned home about 1:00 o'clock in the morning and prepared to retire. She looked under the couch on which she slept to get her bed covers, but found that they were not there. She then started into her father's room for the necessary covering, and was warned by her younger sister not to go in there as her father was drunk, had been quarreling with her mother, and had threatened to run the latter away from home the next day. To this Edith replied: "That doesn't make any difference. It's not the first time hehas been drunk. He is not going to run mama off."

Edith then procured her bed covers from her father's room and returned to her sister's room and began talking to the latter. Her father was then moving around in his room and muttering to himself. He said something about whipping Edith for having stayed out so late. Despite her remonstrances that she had been out with his nephew and her first cousin, he proceeded to attack her. They were then in the kitchen. He first picked up a chair, but at her command dropped it. He then grabbed a butcher knife, which she attempted to take away from him. The knife dropped from his hand, and the younger sister secured and hid it behind the clock. In the meantime he had seized Edith by the hair. In the ensuing scuffle they overturned a bucket of water and knocked several kitchen utensils from the wall. Having broken loose, Edith went into her mother's room, but was followed by her father, who renewed the altercation. He seized her by the neck or near the throat and pushed her over a chair, and she fell to the floor. She felt something at her back, reached for it, and found that it was a shoe. This she grabbed and struck several times in his direction in the effort to free herself from his grip. As soon as her father released her, she dropped the shoe, ran out of the front door between her home and that of Chant Kelly, her nextdoor neighbor. Her clothes had been almost torn from her body. She went to the side entrance of the house and requested that her sister bring her shoes and clothes.

Just about this time Mr. Kelly appeared on the scene and offered his assistance. But this she declined, as she did not wish her neighbors to know of the family difficulties and did not suspect that her father had been seriously hurt.

Shortly after Mr. Kelly's visit, the mother and younger sister succeeded in quieting the father and getting him to bed. Mrs. Maxwell found that her husband was bleeding from his head wounds and washed the blood from his face. Mary Katherine mopped up the water from the overturned bucket and scrubbed from the floor the blood spots.

Before retiring the father's bloody shirt was removed and by Mrs. Maxwell put in the stove (in which there was then no fire) along with some powdered carbide which her husband had overturned.

About thirty minutes after the altercation had ended, the household had quieted down, and the parties had retired, Mr. Maxwell arose from his bed and went out on the porch to get a drink of water. He was heard to fall. His wife went immediately to his assistance and found him lying unconscious in the doorway leading from the kitchen to the porch, with his head near the meat block as above described.

It will be observed that except in the one particular as to whether the deceased was drunk at the time of the altercation, this story of the witnesses for the accused is not materially at variance with that of the commonwealth's witnesses.

But the commonwealth lays great stress on certain additional circumstances as showing that the testimony of Mrs. Maxwell and her two daughters was unworthy of belief, and as demonstrating that the accused was guilty of first-degree murder.

A search of the premises on the day following the killing revealed a blood-stained pillow slip and other bloody bedclothing buried under some...