People v. Schuyler

• Decision Date: 01 July 1887
• Citation: 12 N.E. 783,106 N.Y. 298
• Parties: PEOPLE v. SCHUYLER.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

106 N.Y. 298

12 N.E. 783

PEOPLE

v.SCHUYLER.

Court of Appeals of New York.

July 1, 1887.

Appeal from the judgment of the general term of the Fourth department, affirming the conviction of the prisoner, in the court of oyer and terminer of Otsego county, of the crime of murder in the first degree.

The indictment charged the prisoner with having, on the second of July, 1885, at the town of Morris, Otsego county, with a deliberate and premeditated design to effect her death, killed Amy Schuyler by violently hurling her head against a wooden block, thereby crushing in a portion of her skull, and thus causing her death. The defense was insanity.

The deceased was a daughter of the prisoner and his wife, Minnie Schuyler, and was about three years of age. Evidence was given, on the part of the prisoner, that he had resided at Morris for four or five years, and was a quiet, peaceable, and gentlemanly man. This was not controverted by the prosecution. It appeared, by the evidence of Minnie Schuyler, the mother of the deceased, that on the morning of the second of July, on leaving his home for his place of business, which was near by, he kissed her and his two children, as was his custom, and that he was always kind to the children, and particularly to Amy, for whom he showed partiality. When he went away, his wife asked him to bring home some berries.

The evidence on the part of the prosecution showed that he did not return until about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, which was much later than his usual hour for dinner; that an altercation immediately ensued between him and his wife, which was followed by their throwing dishes at each other; that he then struck her, and she ran out into the yard through the wood-shed, which was in the rear of the house, he following her. Their next-door neighbor, Sweet, saw the affray through the window, and cried out to him, ‘John, hold on.’ As he spoke, the prisoner looked up at the witness, and Mrs. Schuyler ran out of the wood-shed door, the prisoner right after her. As he came out of the door, he said to witness: ‘This is a family affair, and neighbors need not interfere.’ Witness then reproved him for striking his wife. The witness repeated the charge, and the prisoner again denied it. Mrs. Schuyler then spoke, and said: ‘John, you lie; you did strike me;’ and she pointed to blood upon her face. Witness then turned away, and the next thing he saw was Schuyler going back into his house. He went a few steps, and came out again. She was then going away from the wood-shed door, towards the road, and the prisoner asked her whether she was going to take care of those young ones, and she said: ‘No, I am not.’ Other witnesses said her reply was: ‘No, I am not while you are here.’ He then turned back, and entered the wood-shed door, out of Sweet's sight, and the next thing Sweet saw was the prisoner coming out of the wood-shed door holding the child by both its ankles, head down, and he strick its head three times on a large wooden block which stood near the wood-shed. The mother, Sweet, and several neighbors who had been attracted by the fracas were then in sight, and their testimony substantially agrees with that of Sweet. There was no claim that the prisoner was intoxicated. As he dashed the child's head against the block, he exclaimed, ‘See here!’ The space of time which elapsed between the prisoner entering the door of the wood-shed and reappearing with the child was very brief. Sweet testified that it was not more than four or five seconds, and this was not controverted. It all happened while the wife was walking from the wood-shed door towards the road, and she had gone but a short distance when the child was killed,

After having killed his child, he laid the body down by the block, and walked to the front of the house, then turned back, and took the body in his arms, and carried it into the house, laid it on a lounge, and then went to the front of the house, and said that he had killed the baby, and expected to hang for it. He asked some one to go in, and close its eyes and mouth, and to look after the younger baby, and proceeded towards the village. Meeting Mr. Gardner, a deputy-sheriff, he surrendered himself, and said to him that he had killed the child, and that it would not have happened but for the neighbors. He was taken to a hotel, where he remained in custody several hours while the papers for his commitment were being prepared. During this time he conversed with several persons, and he was afterwards conveyed by wagon in charge of Gardner and Mr. Taylor, a former deputy-sheriff, to the jail, 22 miles distant, occupying about four hours in the trip. His declarations to these witnesses, as well as to those with whom he conversed at the hotel, were put in evidence by the prosecution.

At the hotel he said to Hall: ‘It have killed my child, and expect to hang for it.’ He began crying and lamenting; saying: ‘I have killed that dear child, and the child was not to blame.’‘My poor little Amy! I have killed my child, my poor little innocent child;’ that his temper got the best of him. To Dr. Hall he said: ‘They say I have killed my child. Is she dead?’ He also said if it had not been for Sweet it would not have happened. Ralph Murdock, who appears to have been an intimate friend of the prisoner, came to see him at the hotel, and the prisoner put his arms around his neck, and said: ‘Ralph, don't be down on me for this; it was done in a passion, and what's done can't be undone;’ and repeated: ‘It was a sad, sad caper.’ And later on he said that Sweet caused it. When told that he would not be tried before January, he expressed regret that he would have to wait so long. In the wagon he sat with Taylor on the back seat, and was handcuffed to him. He was sobbing and crying, and repeatedly exclaiming: ‘Is it possible that I have killed that poor little child?’ Taylor testifies that the prisoner slept on the way, or seemed to be asleep, and would start up occasionally, and speak of his child every time he roused up, and moan: ‘Oh, my poor little child!’

Minnie Schuyler, the wife of the prisoner, was called for the defense, and related the origin of the quarrel with her husband on the occasion in question. She testified that, when he came home to dinner, she stood in the front door, and he came along swinging his pail in in such a manner that she though he had no berries in it, (in which she proved to have been mistaken,) and she reproached him with being so late, and keeping her waiting at a time of day when she had so much to do. An angry altercation then ensued. She says he looked so strange-so funny-that she accused him of having been drinking, which he denied. He sat down, and she told him to help himself to the dinner. He looked very staring, eyes glassy, very pale, and lips blue. She made some remark. He picked up a cup and saucer, and threw it, and she picked up a saucer, and threw it at him, and he then grabbed her. She told him not to talk so loud, as the neighbors would hear, and he shut down the window. She ran into the back room, and he struck her, and she fell. Then Sweet spoke to him, and she relates the rest according to the testimony of the witnesses for the prosecution. She says that she told him twice that he lied, and that she spoke unkindly to him,-very unkindly. She was asked whether, from what she saw of him then, and heard him say, she believed that he was rational or irrational then; but, on objection by the prosecution, the question was excluded. The witnesses for the prosecution escribe him as having looked very pale at the time of the commission of the crime.

The evidence on the part of the defense to sustain the plea of insanity was to the effect that, when he was 11 years of age, (he was 27 at the time of the killing,) he had a sun-stroke, from the effect of which he was confined to his bed for several days; that he had been a weakly child from his birth, and was troubled generally with costiveness; that he had been beaten on the head with stones; that he had been brought home insensible from other injuries; that there were some depressions in his skull; that ever since the sun-stroke he had suffered severe headaches, which caused him to manifest great pain, accompanied and followed by pallor; that a week or ten days before the homicide, in playing ball, he had violently butted his head against that of another person, and was thereby felled to the ground with much force; that from that time to the second of July he complained of severe headaches, and his wife testified that on the night before the homicide, on retiring, he complained of a severe headache, and when he retired she procured for him a board, against which he pressed his feet, while he pressed his head against the head-board of the bed, and lay thus for several hours. She describes these headaches as very violent, and his actions as strange while he was suffering from them. On the morning of the day of the homicide, which was a hot day, he worked for a considerable time hoeing in his garden in the sun, wearing a black skull cap. Afterwards, during the morning, he had a heated discussion on politics with a neighbor, in which he became much excited, and was in this condition when he came home, and was received by his wife in the manner which she described.

There was a great deal of testimony on these and other points; and, on the part of the defense, five physicians, Drs. Hall, Pilgrim, Crane, Hills, and McClellan, testified-four of them in answer to a hypothetical question detailing facts in evidence, an which was not objected to by the prosecution as assuming any fact not in evidence, and Dr. Hall testifying from what he saw on the day of the homicide-that in their opinion he was insane at the time of the commission of the act; two of them saying they had no doubt about it. Three of these physicians were acquainted with the prisoner, and had seen him frequently at his...