Peters v. Com.
| Decision Date | 28 January 1966 |
| Citation | 403 S.W.2d 686 |
| Parties | James Edward PETERS, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
Ray C. Lewis, Lewis & Weaver, London, for appellant.
Robert Matthews, Atty. Gen., Harold T. Hotopp, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frankfort, for appellee.
James Edward Peters appeals from a judgment sentencing him to five years' imprisonment in the state penitentiary for feloniously breaking into and entering a dwelling house with the intent to steal. Appellant contends the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury to find him not guilty at the close of the evidence for the Commonwealth and at the conclusion of all the evidence.
Grant Reed, Jr., testified he is a school teacher at Lily High School in Laurel County and lives with his wife and daughter about five miles southeast of London. The Reed residence is located on a private road about 1000 feet off the main highway. On April 18, 1965, around 7:45 p.m., while it was still daylight, he and his family left their home to visit a friend who lives in London. They returned around 8:45 p.m.; by this time it had become dark. As they turned off the main highway Reed and his wife saw a car with one occupant, parked on the private road. Neither the automobile nor the person driving it was familiar to either of them. As they approached the driver started his car and continued on the private road toward Reed's farm which lies in back of his house. The Reeds decided not to pursue the car but instead turned left onto another private lane which leads to their home.
As they drew near the house they noticed the doors of their truck were open. Upon closer examination Reed saw his school supplies and work clothes on the front seat of the truck had been searched. After entering the house, they found that close to the front door the sectional pane of a large picture window had been broken out; that the drapes by the window had been torn from the wall and were lying on the floor; and that the window screen had been pushed through and was lying on the floor with the front door mat on top of it. They later observed there was some blood on the drapes.
Reed called the Kentucky State Police to report the break-in. He and his wife decided to drive out to the main highway to meet the trooper since their home is hard to see from where the turn is made off the highway onto the private road. En route they saw a car go out the private road and turn its lights off. They recognized it as the same car they had noted shortly before at the time they came home. There was one person in the car when the Reeds first saw it; there were two in it when they saw it the second time. The Reeds gave chase and were able to obtain the license number of the car, which they furnished to the Kentucky State Police.
State trooper James Herrell traced the license number and this resulted in the arrest of appellant, James Edward Peters, at his home in North Corbin somewhere around 10 p.m. on Easter Sunday. Reed saw appellant at the Kentucky State Police barracks at about midnight, at which time appellant told him he broke into his house. Reed noticed appellant's hand was cut. Also appellant told Reed that Roy Baker was driving the car.
Appellant and Reed both stated there had been no previous trouble between them and that they were boyhood playmates.
Appellant testified that after finishing work on Saturday night, April 17, 1965, he drove his automobile from Mt. Vernon to his home in Corbin. Earlier that week he had purchased in Richmond a fifth and three pints of whisky, a fifth of gin, and approximately three cases of beer. On his trip home from Richmond he consumed an unspecified amount of this liquor but, after arriving there, did not drink any more until about 8:30 a.m. the next day, which was Easter Sunday. At or about 1 p.m. appellant met Roy Baker and during the remainder of the afternoon they rode around in an automobile driven by appellant, each partaking liberally of the liquor appellant had previously purchased.
Both appellant and Baker testified they got very drunk and could not remember much of what happened until they were arrested later that night at their respective homes. Baker stated that the last thing he could remember before he passed out was sitting in the car with appellant out on the private road sometime before dark.
Appellant's first contention is that the trial court committed error in permitting the following statement signed by appellant to be read to the jury:
'My name is James E. Peters, and 27 years of age, and can read and write, and I know Jim Herrell to be a Trooper with the Kentucky State Police, and have been advised of my rights to an attorney, and hereby give a statement of my own free will, this 18th day of April, 1965.'
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...defendant "was intoxicated to the degree of mania, or of being unable to understand the meaning of his statements." Peters v. Commonwealth, Ky., 403 S.W.2d 686, 688 (1966), see also Britt v. Commonwealth, Ky., 512 S.W.2d 496 (1974). Sergeant Lamb testified that Appellant was alert, calm, an......
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