People v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 24 July 1924
• Docket Number: No. 90.,90.
• Citation: People v. Robinson, 228 Mich. 64, 199 N.W. 622 (Mich. 1924)
• Parties: PEOPLE v. ROBINSON.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

228 Mich. 64

199 N.W. 622

PEOPLE

v.ROBINSON.

No. 90.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

July 24, 1924.

Error to Recorder's Court of Detroit; Edward J. Jeffries, Judge.

Mary Robinson, alias Mamie Robinson, was convicted of manslaughter, and brings error. Affirmed.

Argued before CLARK, C. J. and McDONALD, BIRD, SHARPE, MOORE, STEERE, FELLOWS, and WIEST, JJ.Colombo, Colombo & Colombo, of Detroit, for appellant.

Andrew B. Dougherty, Atty. Gen., and Paul Voorhies, Pros. Atty., and Frank B. Ferguson, Asst. Pros. Atty., both of Detroit, for the People.

WIEST, J.

Defendant was charged with the crime of murder, tried in the recorders' court for the city of Detroit, and convicted of manslaughter, sentenced, and by writ of error brings the case her for review.

About 10 o'clock the night of May 23, 1923, on Benton street in the city of Detroit, defendant shot Chester Monaghan, causing his death within a few hours. Defendant operated a restaurant at 691 Benton street, and the night of the killing claims she went into her living room on the way to a bedroom where she kept money in a trunk, to get change for a $5 bill, and in the living room found Monaghan and another man, both strangers to her, and asked them what they were doing there, and went to the bedroom and came out with five $1 bills in her hand. She testified:

‘When I got back in my sitting room, they seemed to be still standing in the same place, seemed to be whispering to each other. One of them seemed like he was drinking. I said to them, ‘You have to get out of here,’ and I walked over to the door and opened the door. The little one beckoned to the big one to go out. The large one started out. The little one, taking me by the hand, grabbed my hand and shoved me back over to the table. When he did that, they both run out the door, the large one--

‘Q. What happened to the money that was in your hand? A. He grabbed the money out of my hand. After he grabbed the money, he shoved me back and run out of the door. The large one, he had been going out. I went to run out behind him, and the smaller one ran by the large one and got out to the sidewalk, and I was just on the platform of the door then when he got out and ran back up in a corner and grabbed something; I saw his hand go back like that, and I heard him hit up the side of the window right by the door, and he smashed the window, and I ran back in the house. I got my revolver out of the drawer, and started to go out the second time. I took my revolver because he had my money, and to defend myself until I came to an officer. So I called ‘Officer’ twice. I did not see an officer. I went out the way they went, but did not know I was so close behind them, but I was intending to watch them until I got to Hastings so I could put an officer on them. When I got out to about the second door, the large one stopped and backed himself up against an entrance way past Chester's tailor shop. The smaller one turned around in my face and says-he cursed and says, ‘Don't follow me; if you do I will kill you.’ He ran his hand in his pocket. I says, ‘Don't come up on me like that.’ He still leaned towards me. When he did that, with his hand in his pocket, I said, ‘Get back, get back.’ He did not get back, so I shot. I shot one time, to scare him off. I did not intend to kill him or shoot him. When I shot him, he turned, took his arm up, and walked right away from me.'

It is claimed the court frequently criticized the conduct of counsel for defendant ‘in a manner calculated to disparage him in the eyes of the jury.’ We will mention but one incident. When the prosecutor was examining a witness, the court asked, ‘Do you want the restaurant marked there by this photographer?’ and the prosecutor answered, ‘Why, yes.’ Thereupon the court said, ‘Well, mark it and go on. What are you waiting for? Afraid of Colombo?’ to which the prosecutor replied, ‘No; I am not afraid of Colombo, don't worry about that.’ Counsel for defendant also turns this into a spurring of the prosecutor to assail him and thinks the hint was taken. The left-handed compliment to counsel inspired the undignified retort by the prosecutor, but that it made another man of the prosecutor, to defendant's disadvantage, passes belief.

We have examined the other remarks complained of, and, while some of them were injudicious, to say they played any serious part in the determination of the grave questions involved would lend them an unmerited dignity. It is claimed that ‘at the close of the people's case the undisputed testimony showed that Monaghan had robbed the defendant in her own home, and that the defendant, to save her money, and to apprehend the felon, shot him. Under such circumstances it was the clear duty of the trial court to direct a verdict of not guilty.’ This overlooks the testimony of Morris Vinikoff that defendant said to Monaghan, ‘You aint going to break any more windows in my house,’ hit him over the head with the gun, and then shot him.

Defendant invokes the old law of hue and cry. The ancient English law of hue and cry or clamor popularis with amercement of dilatory hundreds and award to the captor of a felon has never prevailed in this jurisdiction, although we do accept the common-law right granted one robbed of money from his person to apprehend the robber or follow and cry for his arrest. We spend no further time upon this subject, for under defendant's version of the shooting the killing was not done to prevent an escape but in self-defense. The evidence was closed near the end of the court day, and counsel for the prisoner asked that the argument be put off until the next day in order that he might consult his trial notes and prepare his argument and requests to charge. This was refused, and error is assigned thereon. The trial of the case consumed less than a day, and there was nothing about the evidence requiring resort to notes to recall all of it. It was discretionary with the trial judge to proceed or postpone the trial until the next day, and his refusal of the request discloses no error.

Section 5, Act No. 369, Public Acts 1919, does not limit the hours for holding sessions of the court, and the trial judge had an undoubted right to continue after the hour of 4 o'clock. This is not questioned by defendant's counsel, but it is insisted that, when the trial judge intends to hold beyond the usual hour of adjournment for the day counsel should be warned thereof a sufficient time in advance to be able to prepare requests to charge. The brevity of the trial caught counsel without prepared requests to charge, and, considering the nature of the offense charged against defendant and the time of day, it might have been well to have granted counsel a reasonable time in which to prepare written requests, but we are not prepared to hold...