Peoples v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 17 March 1927
• Citation: 147 Va. 692
• Parties: ALONZO PEOPLES v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 692

147 Va. 692

ALONZO PEOPLES v. COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Richmond.

March 17, 1927.

1. APPEAL AND ERROR — New Trial — Reversal — Section 6363 of the Code of 1919. — Under Code 1919, section 6363, the Supreme Court of Appeals is inhibited from setting aside a verdict approved by the trial court unless it appears from the evidence that such judgment is plainly wrong and without evidence to support it.

2. HOMICIDE — Evidence Sufficient to Sustain Verdict of Murder in the First Degree. — In the instant case, a prosecution for homicide, a witness testified that she saw accused jump out of his automobile from the side nearest to the deceased, and that he had something in his hand that looked like an automobile crank, and that he went toward deceased and that witness heard a report of a pistol and saw a puff of smoke near the deceased. She then saw the accused go to an apple tree about forty feet from deceased and put down what he had in his hand. Another witness testified that defendant told him that deceased shot herself with a 32-20 pistol. This witness introduced a 32-20 bullet which he said was given to him by the undertaker as having been taken from the body of deceased. The witness said that he went to a room in the house of the mother of deceased and found a coat which he thought would fit accused, from the pocket of which he took an empty 32-20 pistol shell. Defendant's mother testified that she heard the shot from her house and went out and saw deceased crumpled up and that accused was coming toward the deceased but did not have a pistol. On the trial the accused asserted the defense that the pistol wound was self inflicted, and introduced a witness who testified that deceased said that she meant to kill herself before day. This witness, however, was contradicted by evidence for defendant. Deceased's life was insured in favor of defendant. The pistol was never found.

Held: That the evidence was sufficient to support a verdict of guilty.

3. APPEAL AND ERROR — Order of Proof — Discretion of Court. — The order in which evidence is introduced is a matter which rests in the sound discretion of the trial court, and the exercise of this discretion will not be interfered with, unless there has been a palpable abuse of same. Especially is this true where proof of a crime depends in part, or in whole, upon circumstantial evidence.

4. HOMICIDE — Evidence — Connection of Accused with Pistol Shell and Coat Introduced — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, a prosecution for murder, accused objected to the introduction in evidence of a coat and empty pistol shell found in a room in the house of the mother of accused, on the ground that these articles were not sufficiently identified before their introduction to connect the accused with them.

Held: That the burden of proof rested upon the Commonwealth to connect the accused with the coat and the empty shell.

5. HOMICIDE — Evidence — Connection of Accused with Pistol Shell and Coat Introduced — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, a prosecution for murder, accused objected to the introduction of an empty pistol shell and coat in evidence on the ground that they had not been sufficiently identified to connect accused with them. Accused had free access to the room in which these articles were found. The coat, according to the testimony of a witness "would about fit the accused." Accused was present when deceased was killed. A bullet that would fit the empty shell was removed from the body of deceased.

Held: That the accused was sufficiently connected with the coat and shell to admit of their introduction as evidence, especially as accused did not deny that the coat belonged to him and made no effort to explain the presence of the shell in the coat.

6. TRIAL — Technicalities — Circumstantial Evidence. — It is the present policy of the courts to strip a case as far as possible of technicalities and reach a just solution upon the merits; especially is this true in cases involving circumstantial evidence.

7. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE — Admissibility. — Much must be left to the discretion of the trial judge, but where the proper determination of a fact depends upon circumstantial evidence, the safe, practical rule to follow is that in no case is evidence to be excluded of facts or circumstances connected with the principal transaction, from which an inference can be reasonably drawn as to the truth of a disputed fact. While a single circumstance, standing alone, may appear to be entirely immaterial or irrelevant, it frequently happens that the combined force of many concurrent and related circumstances, each insufficient in itself, may lead a reasonable mind irresistibly to a conclusion.

8. HOMICIDE — Argument of Counsel — Demonstration by Commonwealth's Attorney that Deceased could not have Committed Suicide — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, the Commonwealth's attorney borrowed a long-barreled revolver from an officer and started to demonstrate that it was impossible for the deceased to have shot herself, over the protest of the attorney for accused. There was no evidence that the revolver used by the Commonwealth's attorney was the one by which deceased was shot, but there was evidence that the pistol used for the demonstration was of the same calibre, size and kind as that formerly owned by the deceased. The attorney for the Commonwealth was not seeking to demonstrate that deceased was shot with a pistol similar to the one he was using by way of illustration, but was endeavoring to show that it was impossible for the deceased to have shot herself with a pistol of the same calibre, size and kind as the one exhibited.

Held: That the court did not err in refusing to sustain the objection of accused to the action of the Commonwealth's attorney.

9. ARGUMENT OF COUNSEL — Illustrations — Appeal and Error. — Argument by means of illustration, such as exhibiting to the jury models, tools, weapons, implements, etc., is a matter of every day practice. A discretion is vested in the trial court to prevent an abuse of the use of such illustrations, and unless there has been such an abuse, the appellate court will not interfere.

10. CRIMINAL LAW — Reasonable Doubt — Each Juror Convinced Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. — In a prosecution for homicide, the court refused to give the following instruction for the accused: "Each juror should feel the responsibility resting upon him as a member of the jury, and should realize that his own mind must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt before he can consent to a verdict of guilty. Therefore, if any individual member of the jury, after having duly considered all the evidence in this case, and after consultation with his fellow jurors, should entertain a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt, it is his duty not to surrender his own convictions, simply because the balance of the jury entertain different convictions."

Held: Upon the authority of Sims Commonwealth, 134 Va. 736, 115 S.E. 382, and Scott Commonwealth, 143 Va. 510, 129 S.E. 360, that it was not error to refuse the instruction.

11. HOMICIDE — Motive — Instructions — Instruction not Supported by the Evidence — Case at Bar. — In a prosecution for homicide, the court refused to instruct the jury that the absence of all evidence of an inducing cause or motive to commit the crime, when the fact is in reasonable doubt as to who committed it, afford a strong presumption of innocence.

Held: That while the instruction stated a correct principle of law, it was not applicable to the case at bar where there was evidence of an eyewitness, which pointed to the accused as the perpetrator of the crime, and evidence that the life of deceased was insured for the benefit of defendant which, according to the theory of the Commonwealth, constituted a motive for the killing.

12. HOMICIDE — Circumstantial Evidence — Instructions — Amendment by Court — Case at Bar. — In the instant case the accused asked that the jury be instructed that "circumstantial evidence must always be scanned with great caution, and will never justify a verdict of guilt, especially of an offense, the penalty of which may be death, unless the circumstances proven are of such a character and tendency as to produce on a fair and unprejudiced mind a moral conviction of the guilt of the accused beyond all reasonable doubt, and unless the jury believe from the evidence that each and every circumstance essential to conviction of the accused had been made out and established beyond a reasonable doubt, then the accused should be acquitted." The court amended the instruction by inserting the words "as well as all evidence" after the words "circumstantial evidence." Held: That while it was doubtful whether or not the instruction, either as offered or as amended, should have been given, there was no error in the court telling the jury to scan all the evidence with great caution and refuse to bring in a verdict of guilty unless satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the truth of the charge.

Error to a judgment of the Circuit Court of Norfolk county.

The opinion states the case.

R. H. Bagby and T. E. Gilman, for the plaintiff in error.

John R. Saunders, Attorney General, Leon M. Bazile and Lewis H. Machen, Assistant Attorneys General, for the Commonwealth.

CAMPBELL, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

The accused, Alonzo Peoples, has been convicted by a jury of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary for a period of twenty years.

The record, while unsatisfactory, displays the following facts:

Lena White, a negro woman, on the 13th day of September, 1925, about six o'clock a.m., came to her death as a result of a wound inflicted by a bullet from a 32-20 calibre pistol; the bullet entered under the right arm near the back, at a point on the right side of her body, in the lower border of the liver, and came out on the left side of the...