People v. Turville

• Decision Date: 18 February 1959
• Docket Number: Cr. 6224,6249
• Citation: 51 Cal.2d 620,335 P.2d 678
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of California, Respondent, v. Charles Evan TURVILLE, Jr., Appellant. PEOPLE of the State of California, Respondent, v. Lamar MITCHELL, Appellant.

Page 678

335 P.2d 678

51 Cal.2d 620

PEOPLE of the State of California, Respondent, v. Charles Evan TURVILLE, Jr., Appellant.

PEOPLE of the State of California, Respondent, v. Lamar MITCHELL, Appellant.

Cr. 6224, 6249.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Feb. 18, 1959.

Rehearing Denied in Cr. 6224 March 18, 1959.

Morris Lavine, Los Angeles, and William L. White, Long Beach, for appellants.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., William B. McKesson, Dist. Atty., Los Angeles, Lynn Compton and Jack Kirschke, Deputy Dist. Attys., Long Beach, for respondent.

McCOMB, Justice.

Defendant Turville, aged 22, was found guilty of first degree murder, and the jury fixed the penalty at death. His appeal is automatic, pursuant to section 1239, subdivision (b), of the Penal Code.

Defendant Mitchell, aged 17, was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He appeals from the judgment and the order denying his motion for a new trial.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the People, the record discloses the following facts:

On August 26, 1957, the victim, Milo S. Smith, was an attorney in San Pedro. His practice dealt with criminal cases to a certain extent, and a number of his clients were Negroes. He was well known in the San Pedro area, having practiced there for over 30 years. At the time of his death he was 55 years old, 5 feet 8 1/2 inches in height, and weighed about 197 pounds.

His suite of offices was located on the second floor of a two-story building on Pacific Avenue. An alley ran along the back of the building, with a parking area in the rear. There were doors and stairways in both the front and rear of the building giving access to the second floor.

The suite consisted of several rooms. One was a large room known as the workroom or library, where Mr. Smith and his secretary, Mrs. Knuston, worked. Adjoining this at one end was a room known as the 'morgue,' in which were filing cabinets, a refrigerator and a closet. In this closet Mr. Smith kept his entire wardrobe, including a number of ties which hung from a rack on the inside of the door. Thirty-five to forty-five pairs of shoes were kept on top of the filing cabinets. Adjoining the workroom at the other end were a combination kitchen and bar, and a restroom.

Across the hall from the workroom were three other rooms, including Mr. Smith's private office, or consultation room, with windows overlooking Pacific Avenue. This office contained, among other things, a desk, a large table, and an upright safe.

Mr. Smith wore bifocal glasses. Even with his glasses, he could not see the dial to open the safe, and, to the knowledge of his secretary, he had not opened the safe during the nine years she had been in his employ. In September 1956 the combination to the safe had been changed, and his secretary had typed the new combination on a small slip of paper, which he carried in his billfold.

Mr. Smith was in the habit of carrying large sums of money on his person. In his hip pocket he carried a billfold containing identification cards and from $1,000 to $2,000 in large bills. In his front pants pocket he carried a leather money clip, which ordinarily contained bills of $20 or less. He also carried in his inside coat pocket a secretary-type wallet containing a note pad and pencil, but his secretary had never known him to carry money in it.

After locking the office at approximately 5:15 p. m. on August 26, 1957, Mr. Smith and Mrs. Knutson went to a nearby cocktail lounge, where they remained for about an hour. Smith was wearing a dark blue suit and a white short-sleeved shirt. Before leaving the office he had removed his tie and placed it in his pocket. Mrs. Knutson observed that Smith was wearing his wrist watch and a diamond ring and that he had a substantial amount of money in his money clip, including several $50 bills. His name was engraved on the back of his wrist watch.

About 6:30 p. m. Mrs. Knutson and Smith separated. He drove to the home of a client, Mrs. Helen Seal, in the Palos Verdes area of Los Angeles County. Subsequently, in the company of Mrs. Seal's son Michael, he returned to the San Pedro area, where the two of them visited several bars. Around 2 a. m. on August 27, 1957, they met defendants on the corner of Fifth and Beacon Streets in San Pedro. Smith gave defendant Turville $20 to purchase a bottle of whiskey for him. Turville returned and said he could not get any liquor and offered the bill back to Smith, but Smith told him to keep it. Defendants suggested that it would be wiser to drive around in Smith's car than to stand on the street. Smith, Seal and defendants then drove to Smith's office in his car.

On arriving at the office, they parked the car in the rear of the building, and the four entered Smith's offices by the rear door and stairway. Smith showed the party through the offices and after some conversation gave defendant Mitchell some shoes. He then called a cab driver friend, who brought a bottle of whiskey to the office. He invited the driver to the office for a drink, but the invitation was declined.

After some drinking and conversation in the office, Seal departed, driving Smith's car, and returned to his home, where he arrived about 3:20 a. m. Shortly before this time, Smith telephoned Mrs. Seal to inquire about his car. About 3:30 a. m. he again called Mrs. Seal, and learning that his car was at her home, he instructed her that it be left in the driveway and said he would pick it up later. About 4:57 a. m. he called for a cab to be sent to his office. The cab was dispatched but returned without a fare.

About $5:20 a. m. the dispatcher of the cab company received another call asking that a cab be sent to Smith's office, but the person who made this call was not Mr. Smith.

About 5:21 a. m. Chester Burns, a cab driver, drove up in front of Smith's office and ovserved lights in the office. He honked his horn, got out of the cab, entered the front of the building, and went to the door of Smith's office. While outside the door, he heard someone opening and closing desk drawers, but when he knocked on the door the noise ceased. No one answered the door and he departed. As he left the building, he stumbled over two or three pairs of Smith's shoes at the foot of the front stairs. While getting into his cab, he looked up at the windows of the office and observed a person who appeared to be watching him. This person was not Smith.

At 7:50 a. m. Mrs. Knutson entered the building through the rear door and stairway and came into the office through the 'morgue' room. She observed that the closet door was open and that the ties had been disturbed. She went to Smith's private office and found his body lying face upward with a necktie around his throat. The necktie was the one he had taken off and put into his pocket the preceding evening. The blue pants and coat that he had been wearing were cast to one side on the floor, and his billfold was lying open and empty on the table back of his desk. His glasses were lying on a shelf in another room some distance from the body. A .45 automatice, which was kept in the desk in his private office, was missing. The facing was broken off the drawer of the secretary's desk, and five pairs of Smith's shoe were gone.

The police entered the building through the front entrance at approximately 8 a. m. At the foot of the stairs they found a soiled towel but no shoes. They observed a souvenir rifle, broken in two parts, lying near the body. A telephone, with the receiver broken but resting in the cradle, was on the floor. Smith's secretary-type wallet was lying on the floor behind the desk, and a paper containing the combination to the safe was on the floor.

The investigating officers found a bloody footprint near the safe, blood on the safe, and a bloody mark in front of it, as if someone with blood on his knee had knelt there. A small saucepan of water was sitting by the victim's head, and there was a small wooden gavel partially under the body. Blood and water were mixed on the carpet. The blood was the same type as Smith's. When the officers turned Smith's body over, they found that his hands were tied behind his back with a necktie. There was broken glass on the floor of the workroom, but aside from the fact that the telephone in the room where the body was found was broken, there was no evidence of a struggle in the offices. Smith's money, watch and ring were missing.

Fingerprints and palm prints of both defendants were found throughout the offices, specifically on the broken telephone, the top of the desks, the filing cabinets, and the closet door.

The autopsy surgeon testified that in his opinion the victim had died between 4:47 and 6:47 a. m. on August 27, 1957, and that the cause of death was massive internal hemorrhage from a rupture of the mesentery. There were 55 external wounds or groups of wounds on the body, the entire rib cage was fractured and compounded externally, and the ligature around the neck had been applied with sufficient force to fracture the hyoid bone and to produce discoloration in the skin of the neck. In the autopsy surgeon's opinion, Smith had been garroted and his injuries were extremely painful and had been inflicted after his hands had been tied behind his back and apparently while he was conscious.

On August 29, 1957, defendant Turville was arrested at the home of his aunt in Brooklyn, New York, by two agents of the FBI. At the time of his arrest he was wearing Smith's watch and ring. He was taken to the New York office of the FBI, where he orally confessed to the murder and then signed a 12-page written confession containing the same matters as the oral confession. Before he was questioned by the agents of the FBI, he was advised of his constitutional rights. On the following morning he was arraigned on a federal warrant before the United States Commissioner.

In his confession Turville...