People v. Joyce

• Decision Date: 28 February 1922
• Parties: PEOPLE v. JOYCE.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

233 N.Y. 61

134 N.E. 836

PEOPLE

v.JOYCE.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Feb. 28, 1922.

James Joyce was convicted of first degree murder, and appeals.

Reversed, and new trial ordered.

Appeal from Queens County Court.

William E. Kennedy, of New York City, for appellant.

Dana Wallace, Dist. Atty., of Long Island City (Joseph Lonardo, of Flushing, of counsel), for the People.

HOGAN, J.

About 11 o'clock in the evening of July 1, 1920, one Adam Zittell, the keeper of a delicatessen store at No. 604 Broadway, Astoria, was shot and, as a result thereof, died within a few minutes thereafter. The crime was shrouded in more or less mystery, and, while the public authorities were active in an attempted discovery of the perpetrators of the crime, so far as the record discloses the clues cannot be said to have been such as to justify any well-founded suspicion that defendant was connected with the homicide. Four weeks later, on July 30th, a police officer held a warrant for the arrest of defendant upon a charge of grand larceny. Defendant was arrested thereunder at a lunchroom located opposite the railroad station in Jamaica about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and taken to the Seventy-fourth Precinct station, Brooklyn, arriving there soon after 2 o'clock. Later defendant was taken to the Seventy-Sixth Precinct station, to the 111th Precinct station; Astoria, to Mercer Street station in Manhattan, and finally to the delicatessen store in Astoria, formerly conducted by Mr. Zittell. The various trips occupied some 12 hours. At the various stations, officers and detectives of the police force were in attendance. Defendant was interrogated by certain of the officers and in their presence relative to the murder of Mr. Zittell. A number of them testified as witnesses for the prosecution as to statements made to them or in their presence by defendant, wherein he acknowledged participation in the murder of Mr. Zittell, and further that, upon the last trip to Astoria, defendant illustrated to some of them, in the delicatessen store the manner in which the crime was committed. Soon thereafter defendant was arraigned in the Magistrate's Court upon a charge of murder. Up to that time defendant assumed he was charged with grand larceny, to which charge he asserted he was innocent.

December 28, 1920, defendant was indicted jointly with John Doe, the name presumably intended to represent one Tony, asserted to have been mentioned in defendant's statements, for the crime of murder first degree. So far as appears, no person other than defendant has been apprehended for the crime. Defendant was placed on trial May 3, 1921, and the result of that trial was a disagreement. Upon the second trial the jury rendered a verdict of guilty as charged in the indictment.

A detailed narration of the statements made by defendant will be omitted, save only so far as may be necessary to disclose views entertained as to the statements in general and bearing upon the conclusion we have reached upon the appeal herein. If the statements made or alleged to have been made by defendant were eliminated from the record, the conviction of defendant would not be supported by evidence, tending in the slightest degree to convict him with the crime of murder.

Defendant was a witness on the trial and denied that he had made the statements attributed to him; that he had ever been in Astoria prior to his arrest; or that he had knowledge of the murder of Mr. Zittell until informed of the same by the officer of the police department, who arrested him on the charge of grand larceny and who related to him in detail the circumstances surrounding the crime and the manner in which the same was committed while on the way to the first precinct station, and again in the various other precinct stations to which he was taken. He also testified that various officers, in the endeavor to coerce him to admit participation in the crime of murder, had illtreated and assaulted him. The evidence of defendant was contradicted by the officers, and they severally testified that all statementsmade by defendant were voluntary. The question of fact thus presented was solved by the jury, adverse to defendant. The conviction of defendant, based as it is on the confessions of defendant, necessitates a reference to certain facts relating to the confession.

The theory of the prosecution was that defendant, immediately upon his arrest upon a charge of grand larceny, without suggestion or intimidation by the officer making the arrest, voluntarily made a statement to the officer detailing the murder of Mr. Zittell and his participation in the crime. Examination of records in homicide cases justifies the assertion that the prevailing custom, where statements are thus made, is to proceed at once to the office of the public prosecutor where the accused is advised of his rights, then examined by the district attorney, the proceedings taken by a stenographer or written out at length, read over to the accused, correction made if necessary, and his signature obtained to the statement if he is willing to sign the same. Such procedure was not adopted in the present case. For some reason it was deemed necessary to take defendant from one precinct station house to another, as heretofore referred to, covering a period of some 12 hours, that the statements of defendant might be made in the presence of various officers. The first precinct station was reached about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, an hour when the public prosecutor or one of his assistants would doubtless be at the office, but defendant was not taken there until about half past 9 the following morning. Up to that time no written statements had been prepared or made, neither had the various statements attributed to defendant been reduced to writing. Certain of the officers testified that they did not have defendant make a statement in writing because he confessed ‘so easily.’ The detective who took defendant to the office of the district attorney testified that defendant there made a statement, but the same was not put in writing; ‘it is customary for a district attorney to take a statement when a man goes through a case as he did, but the district attorney didn't take it on account he never thought this man would deny that statement.’ A captain of one of the precincts, who had been connected with the police force for 25 years, while testifying as to statements made to him by defendant, stated he had asked defendant many questions, and it was necessary for him to repeat questions to defendant, ‘for this reason, the man confessed so easily and I was rather impressed with the fact that he wasn't right first off to be honest with you,’ and further, ‘I told Detective Shalow to take defendant to the district attorney's office and not to get any written confession from him.’ In this connection, evidence of the defendant as to what transpired in the district attorney's office becomes important. Defendant testified that Detective Shalow told Mr. Barry, the assistant district attorney, how the crime was committed; that Mr. Barry asked him (defendant), ‘Is that right?’ and that he replied ‘No;’ that he never told the detective such a story and he did not know anything about the crime; that Mr. Barry then told the detective ‘to go out and get the offense off the right man. You have brought an innocent man into my office and try to say he was the man that was there. You are trying to shield up somebody two other men by bringing this man here. You are trying to force this man to say something about this crime which he doesn't know anything about.’ Mr. Barry was not called as a witness to contradict that statement of defendant.

Attention has been called to the facts referred to for the purpose of illustrating certain unusual features of the case.

Assuming, for the purposes of this case, that defendant, immediately upon his arrest upon a charge of larceny without suggestion or intimidation from the officer making the arrest, voluntarily confessed participation in the crime of murder and detailed the circumstances connected with the crime, not only to that officer, but to a number of police officers and detectives, we have presented a situation quite out of the ordinary, so unusual in character that officers of the police department of years of experience in the administration of criminal law, the apprehension of offenders and shrewd and active in the discovery of evidence, were surprised at the statements made to them by defendant. To again quote the testimony of one captain of police, who had an experience of 25 years in the department, ‘the man confessed so easily I was rather impressed with the fact that he wasn't right, first off to be honest with you.’ Other of the officers testified defendant confessed so easily they did not believe he would ever deny the statements made by him. In connection with the stated facts there remains the circumstances that no statement was taken and reduced to writing by the officers or the district attorney, and the testimony of defendant which was uncontradicted as to what transpired in the office of the district attorney, from which an inference may be drawn that the prosecuting officer hesitated to procure a statement from defendant, which inference is strengthened by the fact that, preceding the trial of defendant, he was visited at the jail by two doctors one of whom represented the people. Of some moment, likewise, is the fact that a jury, upon a former trial where substantially the same evidence adduced by the people upon the trial under review was presented, was unable to agree unon a verdict.The statement that the present case is somewhat extraordinary is fully justified.

In People v. Buffom, 214 N. Y. 53, 57,108 N. E. 184, 186 (Ann. Cas. 1916D, 962), Chief Judge Bartlett, writing for this court, discussing the law applicable to confessions, said:

‘The annals of criminal jurisprudence, however, abound in cases of...