People v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 06 June 1893
• Parties: PEOPLE v. TAYLOR.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

138 N.Y. 398

34 N.E. 275

PEOPLE

v.TAYLOR.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 6, 1893.

Appeal from court of oyer and terminer, Cayuga countv.

William G. Taylor was convicted of murder in the first degree, and appeals. Affirmed.

Frank C. Cushing, for appellant.

Adelbert P. Rich, Dist. Atty., for the People.

MAYNARD, J.

Judgment of death has been pronounced upon the defendant, William G. Taylor, a convict in the state prison at Auburn, for killing Solomon Johnson, a fellow convict, on September 20, 1892. The felonious act was executed with great deliberation, and had evidently been long premeditated. The method of its accomplishment was planned with great cunning and forethought, and every element apparently existed which the law requires to be present in order to establish this most atrocious crime. Counsel assigned by the court to defend the prisoner have discharged that most delicate and responsible duty with great diligence and fidelity, and have urged a reversal of this judgment upon the sole ground of the legal irresponsibility of the defendant for the offense of which he has been convicted. It is manifest that this defense has some basis upon which to rest, and that it has not been invented to meet the exigencies of the trial. In determining whether the verdict was against the weight of evidence, or whether justice demands that a new trial shall be had, it becomes incumbent upon us to make a careful and critical examination of the evidence, in view of the previous history and conduct of the defendant.

The defendant has been living the life of a felon since 1886, when he was sentenced to Dannemora prison upon a conviction for burglary for a term of three years, which expired in the summer of 1888, having received the usual commutation for good behavior. Very soon after his discharge, and in the same year, he was returned to the prison to serve out two sentences for burglary, aggregating about 11 years. From the time of his readmission his conduct was exemplary, with a single exception. He was obedient and tractable, and readily submitted to all of the requirements of the prison discipline, until April 28, 1890, when, without provocation or warning, he assaulted his keeper with a hatchet, and felled him to the floor. He was immediately seized, and placed in close confinement. His demeanor was such as to lead the prison physician to suspect that he might be insane. He was therefore closely watched, and examined daily, and this physician reached the conclusion that he was suffering from that form of insanity known as ‘melancholia.’ His physical symptoms indicated the correctness of the diagnosis. He had the stolid appearance, the slow muscular movements, the flabby, tremulous, and coated tongue, and the slow and weak pulse, usually observable in such cases. When questioned as to his purpose in assaulting the keeper he always told the same story,-that he had concealed the hatchet in his cell on Saturday to enable him to dig his way out, and escape, and failing in that, and knowing that his attempt would be detected, and believing that he would not outlive his sentence, he knocked the keeper down, not intending to kill him, but to secure his revolver and kill himself. He avoided the association of others, and wished to be allowed to remain in his cell, saying that he thought he would either kill himself, or some one else, if he was allowed the liberty a prisoner was usually given. On September 29, 1890, he was transferred, as an insane convict, to the asylum for insane criminals at Auburn, and in the certificate of transfer the prison physician stated, among other things: ‘I believe him to be suffering from temporary melancholia, and not a safe man to keep in state prison, as he is both suicidal and homicidal. I would therefore suggest caution and watchfulness in handling him, as I think he is bent on escape at any cost.’ The defendant was detained in the asylum until September 20, 1891, when the entry ‘Not insane’ was made in the ‘Case Book,’ opposite his name, and he was transferred to the prison, and put to work in the broom shop. The medical superintendent of the asylum states that during this period he was sane, and this entry was made by his direction. The assistant superintendent, in whose charge the defendant was, and who had, perhaps, better opportunities to know his mental condition, objected to this entry as not correctly describing his status, and testifies that during all the time there was a doubt in his mind as to his sanity; that, while he expressed no well-defined delusions, his facial aspect and actions were those of a man not mentally sound; and that he favored making an entry that he was recovering, which would indicate that he had been insane, and might have a recurrence of the attack, while the statement ‘Not insane’ would be construed to mean that he had always been sane, but yielding to the directions of his superior, he made the entry as stated. The defendant and deceased worked in the same shop, and at benches a few feet apart. The latter was a quiet, inoffensive man, and, between the two, friendly and somewhat intimate relations seem to have existed for some months. From the time of his admission, in September, 1891, until the homicide, the defendant's prison record was good. He was quiet, self-contained, diligent, industrious, and skillful in his work, and was never reproved for any misbehavior. It appears from the testimony of several of the convicts who worked in the same shop that in the month of April he exhibited, without any apparent cause, a feeling of great hostility to the deceased. The professed occasion for it was, as he claimed, that he had been thwarted in a scheme which he had formed, of making his escape by means of a gateway which was in process of construction between the asylum and the prison grounds, and that the deceased had informed the prison authorities of his design, and thus caused its failure. It would seem that his plan of escape was not a rational one, if he ever really entertained it. It does not appear that he ever confided it to the deceased, or that the latter had informed any one in regard to it, or that any person had told the defendant that the deceased had given any such information; and we think that the weight of the evidence favors the conclusion that his feelings in this respect towards the deceased were the offspring of an insane delusion. From the defendant's manner the deceased became apprehensive of bodily harm, and he was, at his own request, transferred to a distant part of the shop, where he would not be within reach of the defendant. During the summer the defendant frequently threatened to kill the deceased, because the latter had, as he believed, informed upon him; and there was no intercourse between them until the day before the homicide, when the defendant, upon his own motion, effected a reconcilation, and established friendly relations with the deceased, and seems to have regained his confidence. The next afternoon, when the work of the day was over, and all the other convicts had left the shop, the defendant lured him into a shed under the shop upon the pretense that he had some contraband articles to show him, and there killed him with a knife, which he had concealed upon his person, almost completedly severing the head from the body. Without displaying any trace of emotion or excitement, and with his arms folded, he walked to the office of the principal keeper, and, exhibiting the knife dripping with blood, told him that if he would go down under the shop he would find a carcass there. When questioned as to the motive which prompted the deed, he said that he had to do one of three things,-either starve to death, or kill the deceased, or kill himself,-and that he did it in order ‘to be electrocuted,’ and that he did not want his execution to be delayed. The loss of commutation for good behavior, which he had incurred by his conduct at Dannemora, seemed to weigh heavily upon his mind, and he apparently despaired of his physical ability to survive the full period of his sentence, and his prison life had become so unendurable that he desired to put an end to his own existence, which, he conceived, he could not do except in one of the three ways indicated. His morbid condition of mind was aggravated by the effects of a pernicious habit, which he believed had wrecked him both physically and morally, and by his belief that there were many other prisoners in the same condition; that they would be greatly benefited by a change of prison management, and that it was necessary to kill some one to attract attention to the matter, and bring about a reform; that his first intention was to kill the warden, but, not having an opportunity, he decided to kill a fellow convict, and selected the deceased because he had been placed as a spy over him, and had informed the authorities of his plan of escape.

The trial was had on January 10, 1893, less than four months after the homicide, and it is shown that there was no change in the mental condition of the defendant during that time. He refused to aid his counsel in the preparation of his defense, or give him any specific information in regard to his previous life or his family, and...