People v. Conklin

• Decision Date: 09 June 1903
• Citation: 67 N.E. 624,175 N.Y. 333
• Parties: PEOPLE v. CONKLIN.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

175 N.Y. 333

67 N.E. 624

PEOPLE

v.CONKLIN.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 9, 1903.

Appeal from Court of General Sessions, New York County.

Patrick Conklin was convicted of murder, and appeals. Affirmed.Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler and Charles Cohn, for appellant.

William Travers Jerome, Dist. Atty. (Howard S. Gans, of counsel), for the People.

O'BRIEN, J.

The defendant was convicted of the murder of his wife in the tenement house where they lived, No. 747 West Sixteenth street, between Ninth and Tenth avenues, in the city of New York. The rooms which the deceased and the defendant occupied consisted of a shop in the front, in which the wife conducted a candy store and ice-cream saloon, a room back of that, a bedroom behind it, and beyond that a kitchen, extending to the rear of the house. In this rear room the deceased received four pistol-shot wounds on the 9th day of June, 1902, which produced her death on the same day. The indictment charged and the jury found that these wounds were inflicted by the defendant with the deliberate and premeditated design to effect the death of his wife. The autopsy disclosed four wounds-one passing through the right hand, entering at the base of the thumb at the back of the hand; another passing through the windpipe, entering at the left of the neck; the third entering the breast on the left side, and crossing the body and coming out above the right nippel; the fourth entering an inch to the left of the spine, just below the scapula, and taking a downward course into the left pleural cavity.

No witness, unless it be the defendant himself, saw the shooting or heard the report of the pistol. The claim of the defendant was that his wife committed suicide, and on the witness stand he denied, in general terms, that he killed her. When the police officer reached the house after the homicide, the defendant handed him a pistol, saying, ‘This is what she did it with.’ The revolver was produced at the trial, and it was shown that when handed to the officer by the defendant at least four of the cartridges had been discharged. There was really no proof in the case that would authorize the jury to find that the deceased had taken her own life. On the other hand, the proof, although almost entirely circumstantial, tended to show that the defendant was the author of the crime.

The defendant and his wife had been married about six years prior to the homicide. Their whole married life was one of turmoil, strife, and violence. The evidence tended to show that during that period the defendant had been arrested more than once for assaulting or abandoning his wife. He had not only assaulted her, but threatened on several occasions to take her life, and these threats continued down to the very day of the homicide. It would be tedious to describe these quarrels with much detail. It is sufficient to say that they reveal a most unhappy relation of husband and wife, and on the part of the husband frequent explosions of bitter passion, accompanied by violence of a brutal character. His feelings towards the deceased were evidently those of hatred, which extended to all her family. This strained and unnatural relation of the parties, it is claimed by the prosecution, constituted the motive for the crime. It is a fair conclusion from all the evidence that the defendant and the deceased were alone in the house when the shooting occurred. In a very short time after this, a woman who lived near by entered the room, and, finding the body of the deceased lying prostrate upon the floor, attempted to raise her up, and by questions to ascertain what was the matter and what had happened. The only answer that she was able to draw from the deceased was, ‘Get the priest, for I am dying.’ The defendant was present while this woman was attempting to raise up the body of the deceased, and she was sworn at the trial, and testified to statements made then and there by the defendant to the effect that he had fired the shots that entered the body of the deceased. The pistol from which the shots were fired was found in the possession of the defendant, but he claimed that it was handed to him by one of the women who were in the room immediately after the shooting. The defendant did not go to his usual work that day, but slept late, and then visited one or more of the saloons in the neighborhood. The father of the deceased lived in the same apartments with his daughter, and there was some proof tending to show that the defendant attempted to have him ejected the evening before the homicide, but at the request of the daughter he remained. He was a laborer, and went to his work the morning when the shooting occurred, and saw nothing of it. The younger brother and sister of the deceased were with her during most of the day that the shooting occurred, but they left before the shooting, and the testimony tended to show that one or both of them were sent away by the defendant.

The life of the deceased was insured by two policies in the Prudential Insurance Company, one dated October 22, 1900, and the other September 2, 1901, payable to her personal representatives. The policies represented comparatively small amounts, and, although the defendant attempted to collect them after the death of the wife, these facts do not seem to have been regarded of much importance at the trial. There was another fact established by the proof which is more important, and that is the fact that the deceased was right-handed-always using the right hand to write, sew, or knit, and generally in all her movements when necessary to use the hands. The wounds found upon her body after death were all inflicted on the left side; thus showing, as is claimed, that the wounds could not have been self-inflicted. Without further relating the numerous facts and circumstances that are claimed to have some bearing, direct or remote, upon the issues in the case, it is quite sufficient to say that the case was for the jury upon the facts. The evidence was sufficient to justify the verdict, and this court cannot, without departing from its appropriate jurisdiction and functions, interfere with the facts as determined by the jury.

The record contains numerous exceptions taken by the learned counsel for the defendant in the course of the trial. Most of them are of no importance, and need not be referred to. A few of them call for an answer or explanation, and two or three present questions of a more serious character.

In the selection of the jury, the learned counsel for the defendant interposed a challenge to the panel or the array, which was overruled. The challenge was based upon the claim that the special jury law was unconstitutional, and that the panel was drawn by a person who was not the commissioner. The first proposition is untenable, since the question has been decided the other way. People v. Dunn, 157 N. Y. 528, 52 N. E. 572,43 L. R. A. 247;People v. Hall, 169 N. Y. 184, 62 N. E. 170. The commissioner was at least an officer de facto, and the panel drawn by him was regular. People v. Petrea, 92 N. Y. 128, 143;People v. Youngs, 151 N. Y. 210, 218,45 N. E. 460. The circumstance that another person was subsequently declared entitled to the office does not affect the validity of the official acts of the incumbent for the time being. Matter of Allison v. Welde, 172 N. Y. 421, 65 N. E. 263.

The defendant's counsel propounded certain questions to individual jurors upon a challenge for principal cause, which were objected to by the district attorney, and, the objection being sustained by the court, an exception was taken. The questions were substantially the same in every case. The juror was asked whether he knew that, in law, the accused in a criminal case was to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, and that the proof in a criminal case must be stronger, in order to convict, than in a civil case involving like issues. The objection to these questions was properly sustained. The qualifications of a juror do not depend in any degree upon his knowledge or want of knowledge of the law of evidence as applicable to criminal trials. These were all matters of law, which the juror was bound to take from the court. A juror cannot be a law to himself, but is bound to follow the instructions of the court in that respect, and hence his knowledge or ignorance concerning questions of law is not a proper subject of inquiry upon the trial of the challenge for cause.

Perhaps the most important evidence in the case was the dying declarations of the deceased. They were objected to when offered, but the objection was overruled, and an exception taken. Attention has already been called to the fact that while the deceased was lying on the floor she said nothing, except that she was dying, and to get a priest. In a few minutes after, the priest came, and, finding her unconscious, administered the last rites of the church, conditionally. She was then removed in an ambulance to St. Vincent's Hospital, where one of the physicians, with the aid of stimulants, revived her for a few minutes. It was then that the physician had the few words of conversation with the deceased that constitute the testimony objected to, and which is stated in the record as follows: ‘I asked her why she shot herself. She didn't answer, and I then told her that-I told her that, to come to a conclusion as to the severity of her injuries, I would like to know the direction or course of the bullets. that might not be the exact words-similar to that. She didn't say anything for a time; neither did I; and then I said, ‘Who shot you?’ and she said, ‘My husband.’ I asked her how many times. She said she didn't know. I said, ‘Well, where did he stand?’ She said, ‘At my side,’ and I said, ‘Which side? This side?’ touching her on the left side; and she said, ‘Yes;’ and I said, ‘Well, where did he stand the next time?’ and she sort of collapsed, and didn't answer; and that is...