People v. McGuire

• Decision Date: 18 October 1892
• Citation: 32 N.E. 146,135 N.Y. 639
• Parties: PEOPLE v. McGUIRE.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

135 N.Y. 639

32 N.E. 146

PEOPLE

v.McGUIRE.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 18, 1892.

Appeal from court of oyer and terminer, Orange county.

Fred McGuire was convicted of murder in the first degree, committed upon Amelia G. Gregory, and sentence of death was pronounced against him as follows: ‘No sufficient cause appearing to the court why judgment should not be pronounced, the judgment of the court is that the defendant, Fred McGuire, be put to death in the mode and manner prescribed by law, to wit, by passing through the body of the convict, the said Fred McGuire, a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death, and by continuing the application of such current until said convict is dead, at the state prison at Sing Sing, on some day in the week beginning on Monday, the 6th day of June, 1892.’ Defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Wilton Bennet, for appellant.

M. H. Hirschberg, for the People.

FINCH, J.

It is so entirely clear that the murder charged in the indictment was committed either by the prisoner or Sarah Brown that the learned counsel for the former frankly admitted the fact upon the argument, and so left in the case only the inquiry which of the two was guilty of the crime. Each charged it upon the other, and both, as witnesses upon the trial, gave their version of the facts, and it is not difficult upon a comparison of their respective accounts of the transaction to determine where the truth really is. They started from their home together, and went to the neighborhood of Gregory's house. Both knew that money was kept there, and largely overestimated the amount. Both had talked over the project of robbery, and apparently were ready to commit that crime, if it could be done with safety. The man says that they left home for the innocent purpose of gathering nuts, and that in pursuit of that occupation they came to the edge of the woods near Gregory's; that the woman then said she was going to Gregory's; that the prisoner asked what for, and she merely replied, ‘Wait till I return,’ and that when she came back she said she ‘had murdered the dirty old wretch.’ She had never before been in the house; had no acquaintance with, and so no personal hostility to, Mrs. Gregory; never even asked McGuire to go with her or aid her in the enterprise, and did not tell him her purpose, although she knew he had talked about the robbery, and certainly had displayed no aversion to the act. The story, as he tells it, is not very easy of belief. On the other hand, she testifies that they left home for the understood purpose of effecting the robbery which had often been talked about; that she tried to persuade the defendant to abandon his purpose, but he persisted; that he left her to await for him at the barbed-wire fence; that on his return he said he had killed Mrs. Gregory, but wished he had not; and that he hid the pistol, the pocketbook, the money, and the mask which he had made in the woods where they were afterwards found. Knowing, as we do, that one account or the other is substantially true, although both witnesses were more or less unreliable, there is a very little doubt which should have our belief; and even that doubt is dispelled when other features of the evidence are considered. Mrs. Gregory was both shot through the head and cut and mangled and bruised almost beyond recognition. Her blood was every where; on the floor, and on the door, andttered in all directions. The broken vessel of...