People v. Cignarale

• Decision Date: 05 June 1888
• Parties: PEOPLE v. CIGNARALE.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

110 N.Y. 23

17 N.E. 135

PEOPLE

v.CIGNARALE.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 5, 1888.

Appeal from court of general sessions, city and county of New York.

This is an appeal by the defendant Chiara Cignarale from a conviction at the court of general sessions of the city and county of New York, on the 27th day of May, 1887, of the crime of murder in the first degree, under an indictment found against her and one Antonio D'Andrea, jointly charging them with the murder of one Antonio Cignarale on the 20th day of October, 1886. The appeal is brought directly to this court from the judgment of the court of general sessions, under chapter 493 of the act of 1887. Antonio Cignarale was the defendant's husband. They were both natives of Italy. There they had been married in their very early youth, and had lived as man and wife for about 13 years, when, in March, 1886, they came to America, and settled in the city of New York. The defendant at that time was about 24 years of age. They brought with them a daughter about 8 years of age, the only child of the marriage. They were both extremely poor; and, besides being strangers to the language, customs, and habits of the people they had come to live among, they had but little acquaintance among those who form the Italian colony in New York. Among the number of those whom they had, however, known at their native home was the defendant Antonio D'Andrea, a young man who, it seems, was second cousin to the appellant. Through him the husband procured work at his trade as a mason on the first day of his arrival in New York. He soon abandoned this employment, claiming the work was too hard, and went to blacking boots, and, as the defendant testified, insisted upon her aiding him in that business; and, when she declined to do this, he then insisted that she should pick up rags in the streets, which she also refused to do, but told him she would wash, or do other work suitable for a woman. The evidence justifies the conclusion that the husband was a lazy, shiftless person, unwilling to follow his trade for the support of his family. On reaching New York, they took up their abode and lived in a very humble way on the top floor of No. 342 East One Hundred and Tenth street, in that city, and they continued to live together there for two or three months, until about the 1st of July, 1886. The husband, according to the evidence, treated his wife in a very brutal manner, beating and kicking her, spitting in her face, and generally treating her with great indignity. The husband was jealous of D'Andrea, and accused his wife with having improper relations with him. About the 1st of July, 1886, the defendant left her husband, and took rooms in Forsyth street, leaving her daughter with the deceased. The defendant testified that she was driven away by her husband, and that, when she left him, she intended to return to her friends in Italy. She had $100 when she left Italy, of which $30 remained. With this she says she intended to pay her passage home, and there obtain money from her friends to send for her child. When she left her husband, she took with her a pistol and a box of cartridges, which she testifies her husband had bought with her money. On leaving her husband, she sought D'Andrea to assist her to obtain a passage ticket to Italy. But she abandoned her purpose, finding that she was very ill and weak, and at D'Andrea's suggestion took rooms in Forsyth street. D'Andrea came to board with her then, as did also two or more other Italians. The defendant remained in Forsyth street until a few days before the homicide, when she removed to One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth street; D'Andrea and the other boarders going with her. The people sought on the trial to establish that improper relations existed between the defendant and D'Andrea. There was direct evidence to support this view given by one De Mora Marro and one Filomena Nardiele, a married woman, who had left her husband to live with De Mora Marro, and who, as they testified, occupied rooms in Forsyth street during a part of the time the defendant resided there. They also testified that, while residing in Forsyth street, they heard the defendant threaten the life of her husband, and also heard D'Andrea promise the defendant to marry her if her husband was out of the way, and also heard him giving her instructions in the use of a pistol, using for that purpose a pistol of his own. The defendant denied that she lived in adultery with D'Andrea, and testified that she had for several years been afflicted with a disease of the womb which rendered sexual intercourse on her part with any one impossible. In support of this statement the declarations of the husband were permitted to be given in evidence. The defendant also denied the statements of De Mora Marro and the woman Nardiele as to the alleged threats and the promise of D'Andrea to marry her, and as to the instructions in the use of a pistol. It was claimed by the defendant that their evidence was instigated by malice because she refused to permit them to stay in her house or to harbor therein. It may fairly be said that their evidence is in some respects open to suspicion from its intrinsic impossibility. But, taking the evidence of all the witnesses together, the jury would have been justified in finding that adulterous relations existed between the defendant and D'Andrea. After the defendant left the house of her husband on One Hundred and Tenth street, he removed to One Hundred and Seventh street, and there continued to live to the time of his death. The daughter was taken to a convent. The defendant testified that the husband frequently came to her rooms in Forsyth street, and tried to get in, but she locked the door, and kept him out, and he would go away threatening her life. The narration thus far relates to facts preceding the day of the homicide, which occurred at about 12 o'clock on the morning of October 20, 1886. The theory of the prosecution was that the killing was a deliberate and premeditated assassination. On the other hand, it was claimed by the defendant that the killing was in self-defense, and therefore justifiable, or, if not justifiable so as to completely exonerate the defendant from liability, that there was an absence of the elements of deliberation and premeditation essential to the crime of murder in the first degree.

It is conceded that the deceased was killed by a pistol shot fired by the defendant on First avenue between One Hundred and Tenth and One Hundred and Eleventh streets, in the city of New York. The only eye-witnesses of the occurrence other than the defendant were Dominico Stabile, a carpenter, Vincenzo Allistalo, a midwife, and one Pasquale Rosa, a grocer. These persons were strangers to Cignarale and his wife, and, so far as appears, were wholly disinterested witnesses. The witness Stabile testified, in substance, that, at about 11:45 o'clock on the morning in question, he was on the east side of First avenue, going from One Hundred and Tenth to One Hundred and Thirteenth street, and found the deceased on the same side of the avenue, who was walking leisurely in the same direction, with his hands in his pocket, and whistling. In passing, he observed a woman following the deceased at a distance of about 10 feet behind him. The woman was the defendant. Suddenly, when only a few feet in advance of the deceased, the witness was startled by the report of a pistol, and, turning, saw the woman with a smoking revolver in her hand, and cocking it for another shot. He at once called out to the deceased, saying to him, ‘Run away, or you will be shot.’ The deceased thereupon turned partly around, and the woman at the same moment fired again. The deceased, wounded and frightened, exclaimed, ‘Holy Virgin! Holy Virgin!’ and commenced to run away from the woman, until, at the corner of the avenue and One Hundred and Twelfth street, he fell, and in a few moments died. The woman, after firing the second shot, cocked the revolver again, and proceeded to the place where her husband was lying, and, as the witness states, ‘was going around the crowd with the revolver, and looking between the legs of the crowd with the revolver.’ The defendant then passed up One Hundred and Twelfth street to Second avenue, and was arrested between One Hundred and Thirteenth and One Hundred and Fourteenth streets by an officer, having the cocked revolver in her pocket. The officer testified that, when he first saw the defendant on Second avenue, she had the revolver in her hand, and when she saw him she put it in her pocket, and that, after arresting her, he took her to the corner of One Hundred and Twelfth street, where the deceased was lying, and on seeing him she made a motion as if to snatch the revolver from the officer, who then had it in his hand. The witness Allistalo, who at the time was walking up the west side of the avenue, and witnessed the occurrence, corroborated the statement of the witness Stabile in all material respects. She testified that the deceased was about 10 feet in advance of the defendant, walking ‘indifferently.’ She said: ‘I heard the first shot, and I turned. I saw that the first shot went in a piece of paper, and the piece of paper was burning. Then I saw a woman with a revolver in her hand, and she fired the second shot, and I saw the second shot went into his back, and I saw exactly the smoke. Then he said, ‘Holy Virgin!’ and the man ran away.' The witness Rosa testified that he was standing outside of his store, and heard the report of a pistol. ‘I turned around. I saw then the second shot going towards Cignarale. The man ran away; the woman running after.’ The pistol was a five-barreled revolver, and, when examined, it was found that two of the barrels had been discharged, and three of the barrels were still loaded. The autopsy disclosed that the ball entered the left side of the deceased, at about the ninth rib, and passed...