People v. Hall

• Citation: 62 N.E. 170,169 N.Y. 184
• Parties: PEOPLE v. HALL.
• Decision Date: 20 December 1901
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

169 N.Y. 184

62 N.E. 170

PEOPLE

v.HALL.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Dec. 20, 1901.

Appeal from supreme court, trial term, New York county.

Aaron Hall was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.Charles Haldane and Abraham Levy, for appellant.

Eugene A. Philbin, Dist. Atty. (Charles E. Le Barbier and Henry P. Keith, of counsel), for the People.

VANN, J.

The defendant was indicted for the crime of murder in the first degree, committed in the county of New York on May 17, 1900, by shooting Mary McCarthy with a pistol, and thus causing her death. Upon his arraignment he entered the plea of not guilty, without any specification of insanity. His trial in June, 1900, resulted in a verdict of murder in the first degree, and the usual sentence was passed upon him.

The defendant was a barkeeper by occupation, although he was out of work at the time of the homicide. He was not addicted to drink, but otherwise his habits and character were not shown. He is a young man, although his precise age does not appear, and Mary McCarthy was a young woman about 25 years of age at the date of her death. She was a clerk in the store of Reinhardt Bros., on the southwest corner of Eighty-Sixth street and Third avenue, in the city of New York, and her duties kept her at the ribbon counter. She was an industrious young woman, of whom all spoke well, and there was no evidence which in any way reflected upon her character. The evidence tended to show that about 18 months before her death she was engaged to be married to the defendant. At that time he saw a good deal of her and waited upon her, but after a while she ceased to welcome his attentions, and finally repulsed him. She lived with a widow lady named Gouldsbury, who testified that one evening, about two weeks before the homicide, the bell rang, Mary went to the door, and soon after she heard her scream. Upon going downstairs she found the defendant and Mary together, and asked the latter, ‘Why did you come downstairs?’ when the defendant said to Mary, ‘I am willing to do ten years for you, and I have made every preparation for it.’ Mrs. Gouldsbury told him she would have him arrested, and he said he did not care. Shortly afterward, when he left the house, neither of the young people bade the other good-by. A few days later, as Mrs. Gouldsbury and Mary were on their way to church, the defendant approached them and caught hold of Mary's arm, Mrs. Gouldsbury passed on, but soon returned, and asked Mary if she was coming to church with her, and the defendant said, ‘No; she is coming with me.’ Thereupon he drew a pistol from his pocket, and, pointing it at her, said, ‘You go.’ Mrs. Gouldsbury went on alone, and the defendant went to the door of the church with Mary, but did not go inside. Not long before the homicide, as Mrs. Gouldsbury testified, the defendant followed Mary and herself on their way to Carnegie Hall, and she said to him, ‘Mr. Hall, I do not want you to follow us,’ and he replied, ‘I am not following you. I am following her.’ She told him he had no right to follow her, to which he made no reply. After this he went home with Mary once or twice from the store where she was employed, and on one occasion was seen apparently waiting for her after she had left. There was very little other evidence as to the previous relations of the parties. At about half-past 8 on the morning of May 17. 1900, a witness named Rubinsky, who tended bar in the daytime at a music hall where the defendant had formerly tended bar at night, saw the defendant, and at his request gave him a drink of whisky. After the defendant had swallowed the whisky he asked Rubinsky for a nickel for car fare, saying he had 10 cents, but needed it to get a shave, and that he wanted to go down town and commit murder. The witness, thinking he was not in earnest, gave him the nickel; and the defendant thereupon handed him a pawn ticket for $5 upon an overcoat, and asked him to take care of it, without any explanation. In less than an hour after this interview with Rubinsky, or at about halfpast 9, the defendant entered the store of Reinhardt Bros., with his right hand in his pocket and a partially smoked cigarette in his mouth, and walked toward the counter where Mary McCarthy was usually occupied. She had been waiting on a customer, and had just replaced a roll of ribbons on the shelf, when, as she turned around, she was confronted by the defendant, standing on the opposite side of the counter, but a few feet from her, with a pistol in his hand. He raised the pistol, and she said, ‘Oh, Ed! don't; don't, Ed;’ but he shot her. The bullet entered her mouth, and, hitting a tooth, was deflected downwards, and penetrated her lungs. She ran toward the rear of the store, and the defendant followed her, with his hand extended holding the pistol, when one of the proprietors caught him by the arms and tried to hold him. The defendant, flourishing his pistol, said, ‘If you don't let go of me, I will put it into you,’ and thereupon he was released. He at once ran after Mary, raised his pistol, took aim at her, and fired the second time as she turned around the end of the counter, but apparently did not hit her. With the blood gushing from her mouth, she ran toward the front of the store, was helped to a point near a radiator, where she fell to the floor and died. After the shooting, by advice of one of the clerks, the defendant put the pistol in his pocket, and remained in the rear of the store for a short time, until he was taken into custody. While there, he threw away the butt of a cigarette which he held in his left hand, took out a fresh one, lighted it, and began to smoke. The excited clerks crowded around him. When asked by one why he shot Mary, his answer was, ‘She expected it. She knew it was coming.’ To another who asked, ‘Aren't you sorry for what you have done?’ he answered, ‘No; she expected it.’ Some one said to him, ‘Man, what you did!’ and he replied, ‘I know what I did. She expected it long ago.’ Still another said to him, ‘I would like to riddle you with bullets for doing that;’ and he replied, ‘Never mind that. Save your trouble. Don't go to any bother.’ According to the statement of one witness, when told that Mary was dead he said, ‘Is that so? I am glad to hear of it, then.’ He handed the pistol to the arresting officer voluntarily, and was led, without resistance, to the radiator where the body of the dead girl was lying. The policeman asked some one who was wiping the blood from the mouth of the young woman where she was shot, and the answer was, ‘I do not know.’ The officer turned to ask the defendant why he shot her, but before he had time to do so the defendant said, ‘I put two in her, and there is three others in the pistol I gave you.’ The policeman asked, ‘Why did you shoot her?’ and he said, ‘I have lost two or three places on her account.’ He said to another officer, who took him to the station house, that he was about five feet from Mary when he fired the first shot, and when asked, ‘Do you think the second shot took effect?’ replied, ‘No; I think it was the first shot that done her. It entered her mouth.’ He said that he saw the girl the night before, and wanted to speak to her, but she would not speak to him, and threw him down, when he went home and went to bed, and could not sleep, thinking over his trouble with her. He also said that on the morning of the homicide he took the pistol from a drawer in his room where he usually kept it, and that he did not know what his intentions then were. When asked at the police station if he had made any attempt to run away he said, ‘No; that would have been of no use. I would have been caught anyhow, and I had no money to go anywhere.’ Another policeman conversed with him at the station house at about 10 o'clock on the morning in question, and asked him why he shot the girl, and he replied, because she ‘threw him down.’ ‘Well,’ said the officer, ‘she was a good girl?’ ‘Yes,’ said the defendant, ‘she was a good girl.’ He was then asked, ‘What do you mean by ‘throwing you down?” and he said, ‘Well, I lost a couple of places through her.’ The inquiry continued: ‘How could a good girl make you lose any of your positions?’ and he answered, ‘She didn't want to have anything to do with me, and I got kind of careless.’ He also told this officer that he met her the night before by appointment; that both were excited, and they had some excitable talk; that he did not threaten her, but walked a block with her, when she left him, and he went home. He further said that when he took the revolver from his drawer that morning he intended to frighten her, and that if she had not run away he would not have shot her. All the witnesses who observed him in the store, on his way to the police station, and afterward, although somewhat excited themselves, described him as free from excitement or nervousness, and as cool, calm, and collected, with no flush on his face and no more pallor than usual; for he was usually somewhat pale. There was no nervous movement of the hands, nor twitching of the muscles of the face. His words were quiet and sensible. He spoke in a calm, even, ordinary tone, was apparently unconcerned, with no sign of bravado or of regret. As he stood by the radiator, looking down upon the dead body, he still smoked his cigarette. No witness was sworn for the defendant, who rested when the people closed their evidence. His counsel does not ask us to review the facts, but rests his appeal upon certain rulings which he claims were erroneous. Still, we have carefully reviewed the facts, and, without discussing them, announce as our conclusion that the evidence amply justified the jury in finding that the defendant shot Mary McCarthy with the deliberate and premeditated design to effect her death.

Before we consider the questions relied upon by the appellant to reverse the judgment, it is necessary to decide the appeal...