People v. Galbo

• Decision Date: 30 May 1916
• Citation: 112 N.E. 1041,218 N.Y. 283
• Parties: PEOPLE v. GALBO.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

218 N.Y. 283

112 N.E. 1041

PEOPLE

v.GALBO.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 30, 1916.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Domenico Galbo was convicted of murder in the second degree, and a judgment affirmed by a divided court by the Appellate Division of the Fourth Department (156 App. Div. 414,141 N. Y. Supp. 1078), from which defendant appeals. Reversed, and new trial ordered.Louis E. Fuller, of Rochester, for appellant.

John W. Barrett, Dist. Atty., of Webster (James Mann, of Rochester, of counsel), for the People.

CARDOZO, J.

The body of Francesco Manzella was found to October 30, 1911, at the bottom of a deep ravine along the Webster road near the city of Rochester. The head and legs had been cut off, and the body forced into a barrel. There must have been a violent struggle before death. The coroner's physician describes 22 wounds and bruises. Wounds on the temple had made the victim unconscious; and then with a sharp knife the head had been severed. Whoever used the knife disclosed a surgeon's skill. The legs were cut off later; and again a surgeon's skill was shown. Manzella was a strong, athletic man; and the wounds and bruises bear witness to a vigorous resistance. The defendant is a cripple; he has lost both his legs. He was under arrest within 36 hours of the murder; he did not show a scratch or a blood stain. The people connect him with the murder by evidence that he attempted to secrete the body. They connect him in no other way. We are to determine whether the evidence sustains a verdict that he was a principal in the crime.

There was a joint indictment of Domenico Galbo, the defendant, and his brother, Guieseppe or Joseph; but Domenico was tried alone. The brothers were in business together. Their business was the sale of bananas. They had a store on the corner of Railroad street and the Public Market in Rochester, and in the rear was a barn where they kept their horses. Domenico was unmarried, and slept above the store. Joseph was married, and lived at the home of his father-in-law. They had some acquaintance with Manzella, who slept once, if not oftener, above the store with Domenico. Manzella had served a term in prison for extortion. He was known as a ‘blackhander.’ It seems to be conceded that he made a business of blackmail. On Saturday, October 28, 1911, two days before the finding of his dead body, he requested a loan of Joseph Galbo, but was repulsed. He then said that he would get the money from Joseph's father-in-law, one Ollis. There is evidence that later in the day he made a like request of Ollis, and was told to come back in the evening. He was never seen again. On Monday morning, before it was yet dawn, the farmers and marketmen driving with their burdens toward Rochester, along the Webster road, saw the Galbo wagon, drawn by a gray and a sorrel horse, and Domenico Galbo in the seat. It was going away from the city. In the rear there seemed to be a barrel covered with canvas. Some of the witnesses could describe the wagon and the horses only. Others had noticed the barrel. Others, though unacquainted with the driver, recalled his appearance. An hour or two later the same wagon with the same driver came back along the same road. Those who saw it them make no mention of a barrel. Two men identify the driver as Domenico. One of them jumped on the wagon and rode part of the way.

By 8 o'clock on that morning the body of Francesco Manzella was at the bootom of the ravine. It had come there since the afternoon of the day before. On Sunday, October 29th, about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, a young man went to the ravine to set a trap for a skunk. There was no barrel and no body then. Eight o'clock the next morning the same man went to the ravine, found the barrel and the dismembered body, and notified the police. On the afternoon of the same day the Galbo brothers were in jail.

A trail of circumstantial evidence leads from the ravine to the Galbo store. The barrel was a wine barrel, with iron hoops; in the Galbo store four barrels of the same kind were found by the police. Adhering to the barrel in the ravine was a fragment of a printed card. The card of one Blandi, a wine dealer of Pittsburg, was identical in size and form and space of type. Five barrels of Blandi's wine were sold in March, 1910, to Joseph Calbo. The waybill and receipt produced by the railroad company establish its delivery. Five barrels reached the Galbo store; four were still there after the body was discovered. Near the body in the ravine was a printed time card. The cards had been printed for one Hahn of the McCabe Electrical Company, who kept them in his desks. The desks were sold to the Capon-Sullivan Company, which occupied a store owned by Joseph Galbo. It was next door to the store of the Galbo Brothers. Less than a week before the murder, on October 23, 1911, a member of the Capon-Sullivan Company found the time cards in the desks and threw them into the Galbo yard. As late as November 1st some of the cards were discovered in front of the Galbo barn. Near the barrel in the ravine there was a part of a burlap sack, which had once been filled with chicken feed. It was stained with blood, and had doubtless been used to cover the top of the barrel. It was stamped with the label of the Dickinson Company of Chicago. It bore the tag of ‘Lathrop's Pet Shop.’ Six bags of the same kind, with the same label, were found in the Galbo store, and there was another in the Galbo wagon. A fortnight before the murder, Joseph Galbo bought from nine to twelve sacks of chicken feed from the Clark Douglass Company, which bought them from ‘Lathrop's Pet shop.’ Near the burlap sack were also parts of a rope. Rope of the same material and weight was suspended from books, and carried bunches of bananas in the Galbo store. The rope from two hooks was missing. The tailboard of the wagon showed traces of white paint. White paint was found on the fence which ran along the Webster road at the top of the ravine. Discolored shavings of wood were found in the barrel, and other shavings, apparently discolored in the same way, were found in the Calbo barn. A chemist showed that all the shavings had been colored by the same dye. In the stall of the barn there were breaks in the cement which indicated a recent excavation of a size suitable for a grave. But nothing else that even remotely suggested guilt was found either in the barn or in the store. The police took possession at once, ransacked the buildings from top to bottom, tore the woodwork open, and searched in every nook for traces of blood and for implements of crime. Nothing was found. A detective was then stationed in a nearby cell to listen to the brothers' talk. Domenico said: ‘They are looking for the driver of the wagon.’ ‘You drove the wagon,’ said Joseph. ‘I know I did,’ said Domenico.

[1] This in rought outline was the people's case. The defendant met it with a sweeping denial. He denied that he had driven a wagon along the Webster road on the morning of October 30th. He often went along that road with his burden of bananas, but he did not go that day; that day he drove to Fairport, in a different direction. He did not leave the barn till about 6 o'clock, and, when he left, he did not tkae the gray horse along. The gray horse was sick, and could not go. That is the defendant's statement. But a witness for the people, one Cira, who worked in the Galbo barn, said that he reached there before 6, and that Domenico and the gray horse were gone. It would not be helpful to review the defendant's narrative at length. The jury found him guilty of murder in the second degree, and to reach that verdict must have found that his narrative was false. The credibility of witnesses is not for our consideration, except where the judgment is of death. We must therefore assume that the defendant did drive along the Webster road in the early morning of October 30, 1911. He was there, and spoke falsely when he denied it; he was bearing with him some burden, which to onlookers seemed to be a barrel; and about that hour a barrel, proved by many tokens to have come from the Galbo store, landed with the dead body of Francesco Manzella at the bottom of the ravine. The jury had the right to find that Domenico Galbo had the body with him, and threw it into the ravine to bury it from the sight of men.

[2] The people say that these acts of possession and concealment stamp the defendant as the murderer. They do, we think, beyond question justify the inference that in some way and at some stage he became connected with this crime. But the question remains: In what way and at what stage? Was he a principal, and, if so, did he himself commit the offense, or aid and abet its commission, or counsel or induce another to commit it? Was he, on the other hand, an accessory after the fact, aiding the offender to avoid arrest or punishment? Principals in the first and second degree at common law, and accessories before the fact (Whart. Cr. L. [11th Ed.] §§ 240, 245, 263) are classed alike as principals to-day (Penal Law, § 2). Accessories after the fact are classed simply as accessories. Which of these degrees of guilt attaches to the defendant?

[3] It is the law that recent and exclusive possession of the fruits of crime, if unexplained or falsely explained, will justify the inference that the possessor is the criminal. That rule has most frequently been applied in case of burglary (Knickerbocker v. People, 43 N. Y. 177), and larceny (Stover v. People, 56 N. Y. 315), and receiving stolen goods (Goldstein v. People, 82 N. Y. 231); but it is not unknown in cases of murder (People v. Jackson, 182 N. Y. 66, 78, 74, N. E. 565;Wilson v. U. S., 162 U. S. 613, 619, 16 Sup. Ct. 895, 40 L. Ed. 1090;Williams v. Com., 29 Pa. 102, 106). The highwayman kills his victim; the purpose of the murder is robbery; the same inference that identifies the robber identifies the murderer....